The United States Raising Hand Program
by The Wax Factory
Summary: Forty-two-students. Three days. One winner. It's jungle love baby and it's driving me mad....
1. Form Sent to Spanish Rivers High School

**Form Sent to the Main Office of Spanish Rivers High School**

* * *

**May 10****th, ****2008**

* * *

**_34 Corvaline Drive, Spanish Rivers, OK, 67584_**

* * *

**_To whom it may concern,_**

We are pleased to inform you that your school has been selected for the Raising Hand Educational Reform Act that will commence on November 1st of next year. Due to the high level of planning that will occur, you are being informed now in preparation. The competitors in the Reform Act will be the freshman class (ages 14-15) of next year. All of the contestants have been selected at a random lottery. As you are aware, informing any student(s) of any government activity concerning the school will result in the death penalty of whoever involved. If this form is not mailed back by the twentieth of June, there will be no other option but to take action. Attached is a class withdrawal list so you will be able to make the necessary adjustments for next year. We look forward to your cooperation. God bless America.

**_Best regards,_**

**_Rosemary T. Camden_**

_President of the Bureau of Youth and Population Control_

* * *

**CLASS ROSTER:**

**BOYS:**

1: Barrens, Zane

2: Barrister, Chris

3: Chavez, Miguel

4: Dunnerman, Eddie

5: Graystone, Luke

6: Hashburg, Kevin

7: Igolovosky, Travis

8: Igolovosky, Tristan

9: Juntz, Peter

10: Kelley, Mitch

11: Mercedes, Jude

12: Martinez, Enrique

13: North, Rory

14: Rodriguez, David

15: Spencers, Adam

16: Carpenter, Nathan

17: Tierren, Skylar

18: Tracy, Preston

19: Van Buren, Winston

20: Warner, Darren

21: Zemeckis, Meyerhold

**GIRLS:**

1: Brooke, J.C

2: Devora, Leana

3: Ewing, Mare

4: Harrison, June

5: Jenkins, Victoria

6: Klingerman, Terry

7: Marigold, Demi

8: Mercedes, Prudence

9: Mercedes, Sadie

10: Morgan, Jesse

11: Passington, Lea

12: Patterson, Roxy

13: Prescott, Amber

14: Ridgeway, Risa

15: Rumbaugh, Perry

16: Ryals, Shyla

17: Spring, Adrienne

18: Spruce, Logan

19: Thompson, Erin

20: Yamamoto, Mae

21: Zaun, Nicole


	2. Start: Hour 0: 42 Students Remaining

_"...And these children that you spit on_

_As they try to change their worlds_

_Are immune to your consultations_

_They're quite aware of what they're going through"_

**-David Bowie**

* * *

"This is the last call for everybody on Bus A! Everyone, Bus A is boarding! _Everyone please_!"

The voice of fifty-nine year old and aging biology teacher Jeanette Harp couldn't be heard over the roar and chaos across the courtyard of Spanish Rivers High. Waving her clipboard and reminding herself to buy more aspirin at the pharmacy during her lunch break, she struggled to get things in order as the entire freshman class socialized, gossiped, rioted, and found other ways to pass their time. Although autumn was almost over and spring was dawning, the weather hadn't changed much. Like always, Spanish Rivers, Oklahoma was damp, wet, and admittedly "home", to everyone in the courtyard.

Standing in the courtyard like animals at a watering hole, cliques and social groups mingled and gossiped. Some were enthusiastic to join in with the conversations, some made themselves the center of attention, and some pretended they were enjoying themselves when they would rather be anywhere else in the world.

Besides that, there were the few that kept to themselves. Mitch Kelley was one of them.

Shaking his shaggy black hair out of his eyes, he lay back against his duffel bag as he clicked his tongue. Several years ago, when the country made much more sense, nobody would have cared if his curly hair covered half of his face. Now, he was officially a, "rebellious danger to himself and others". This was funny to Mitch, because for the most part, he actually tried his best to follow the law. They _all_ had to.

"It isn't a question of who's right and who's wrong", their teachers had always told them. "It's that they're always right. Learn not to talk back".

Clicking his tongue, feeling his piercing scrape the roof of his mouth, he surveyed his classmates that stood in tight packs around him. Mitch being a loner was his own choice, and for the most part, it was because he didn't relate well with his classmates. In fact, for the most part, he didn't relate well to anyone in general. Still, even though choosing to be alone wasn't healthy, it gave him a weird sense of individuality. He wasn't a goth, he wasn't an emo, and most of all, he wasn't a freak; he wanted to be separated from all of that.

"Smile!"

In a flash of light, literally, Mitch's thoughts ended. A camera had flashed itself in front of his face, causing bright colors and lines to dance in front of his eyes. When he regained focus, Adam Spencers, the class clown and his best friend, had sat down in front of him with a digital camera in his hands. Unlike Mitch, who was scrawny, pale, and dark-haired like some kind of vampire, Adam's skin always seemed to sunburned. To top it off, he always tended to wear bright polo shirts that made him look like some kind of fluorescent lamp

"The camera loves you", Adam said.

He clicked a button on his camera, revealing the saved picture of Mitch's eyes open wide and confused as Adam had snapped the picture. Shaking his head and smiling, he playfully tried to grab the camera from his friend but missed.

He smirked. "Did you practice learning how to become an asshole, or does it just come naturally?"

"You only live once", Adam laughed. "You might as well have fun, and if you can't do that, you might as well piss off as many people as possible. You could call me a natural". Glancing around the courtyard, he raised his eyebrow. "Check out Lea".

Opposite from him, under the shady oak tree, Lea Passington sat reading a thick book. However, when Mitch craned his neck, he realized it wasn't exactly an ordinary book; it was the Bible. Although there was enough gossip for her to write a biography, nothing true was really known about her. If there was anything strange to say about her though, it was easily what she read. Aside from the Bible, Lea had been seen reading nearly every religious text that Mitch could think up. From the Torah to the Tipitaka, Lea had brought nearly every single bible or scripture to school to waste her free time reading it. It was almost like she couldn't make up her mind about what to believe in. Despite being the most petite and scrawny girl in their grade, Lea definitely wasn't shy; she always had an opinion, usually a negative one, and was always eager to express it. As anybody guessed, Lea was an easy target for bullies.

"Most likely school shooter right there", Adam said, raising his eyebrow. "She's a basketcase".

Mitch shrugged. "I don't think she's really the kind of person to flip out and shoot everyone".

Adam laughed sarcastically, almost like Mitch had told a joke. "It's always the quiet ones, dude. Wait until the year is over and you'll hear the body count. I'm thinking in the hundreds".

Even though Adam's sense of humor wasn't exactly funny or pleasant, Mitch was forced to put up with his best friend. It was partly because they had known eachother since elementary school, but it was mostly the horrible truth; they both had practically nobody else. Everyone liked Adam's sense of humor in class, but for the most part, his sadistic, pessimistic attitude and frequent complaining was hated schoolwide. As for Mitch, well, it was half of his desire to separate himself and half him believing firmly that nobody liked him. While other people chose their friends, the partnership of Mitch Kelley and Adam Spencers was almost cursed. However, it didn't matter. They had both grown to like eachother.

"Ready for a boiling and humid ride on a highway?" Adam braced.

Mitch shrugged. "It's not that long of a ride. Two hours if there's no traffic out on the highway".

"Well, I don't want to waste the entire morning in a hot bus just to go to a camp-out on a beach! Who the hell thinks that up for a field trip anyway? I could have gotten my dad to drive me to the beach. But now it's three hours on a hot bus with no air conditioning. God bless me".

This was something else that made them entirely different. While Adam apparently had a good family who sat down with him for dinner every night, Mitch was lucky if his mother came home at all. Ever since his father had died of skin cancer when he was ten, Mitch's mother had become the bread-maker of the Kelley family and juggled three jobs, almost dismissing Mitch and his older sister, Beth, completely. It had actually gotten so out-of-hand that Mitch had paid his sister, who worked at a tattooing parlor to pay for college, to pierce his tongue. After the painful operation with a limited amount of ice, Mitch had watched his mother come inside at midnight. He had chattered with her from the kitchen counter, but that was it. She hadn't even noticed that his gums were bleeding from the cheap piercing Beth had done. Now, massaging his aching gums like they were grim reminders, he wondered if his mother was still alive; not on the outside where she could go on living like zombie, but where it really mattered.

"-And there's _probally_ going to be broken seats with springs sticking out", Adam finished.

Mitch realized Adam had complained for nearly an entire minute while he had been thinking. "That's great, Adam".

Realizing his friend was no longer listening Adam changed the subject. "How many dead babies does it take to paint a white wall?"

"How many?'

"Depends how hard you throw them".

As flat-out morbid and disgusting as it was, Mitch found himself laughing. Sometimes, Adam's sadistic sense of humor made him seem like he was even more normal than he really was.

"Don't tell girls though, dude", Adam continued. "I told Prudence and she almost kicked me in the balls".

He was talking, of course, of Prudence Mercedes of the Mercedes triplets. The surname, "Mercedes", was like a, "say-no-evil-hear-no-evil", at Spanish Rivers High School. As Mitch thought about it, he realized it was strange how all three of them had landed in at least one of his classes. Sadie Mercedes, the first triplet, was a ditzy and almost sickly skinny girl that was too much of an airhead to do anybody harm. She always turned in homework late purposely, and seemed to take pride in being the stereotype of a dumb blonde. However, if she was trying to impress anyone, it was no use. Although Mitch would think it over and over, there had to be something wrong with you if you were _that_ skinny. The second triplet, Prudence, was exactly the kind of person that would, "flatten someone's balls". Even though she was a girl, she was the one person in the class that not even jocks like Chris Barrister, the quarterback and local jackass, bothered. In fact, she had become so athletic and muscled from volleyball and lacrosse that the wrestling coach had offered her a spot on the team, even though she had the, "unfortunate handicap of being a girl". What happened after was unclear, but Coach Dan hadn't returned from the hospital since. Apparently, it had involved a broom from the storage closet and a shattered jaw.

However, neither of these two girls were as bad as their brother.

"Are you thinking of _him_?"

Mitch nodded, shuddering. "Did he come to school today?'

"Him", was none other than Jude Mercedes, both respected and feared schoolwide. When the two words were used together, a hushed silence usually entered the room afterward. When you looked at Jude at first, there really didn't seem like much wrong with him. In fact, half of the girls would admit that he was easily one of the hottest guys in the school. However, the age-old expression, "don't judge a book by its cover", was straight-out true. When you looked into Jude's eyes, it was almost like staring into a mirror that made you feel bad about yourself. The way he smiled was almost unearthly, and nearly everything he did just seemed as awkward as it did perfect. Easily though, the most frightening thing about Jude was his uncanny ability to tear a conversation apart. He knew just the right thing to say to set off chains of reactions that would turn friends into enemies. He wasn't physically strong at all, usually sitting out in gym class or showing up on a whim, but the things he would say were as powerful as any punch anybody could throw. There were rumors that Jude's father was a convicted con artist, currently serving in prison, but nobody dared to pursue it any farther. Even his own sisters seemed frightened of him and they had practically been born with him.

Obviously, with the slight exception of Sadie, everyone stayed away from the Mercedes triplets like a high school plague. It wasn't that they necessarily ever did anything wrong, but unfortunately, they were _different_. It was clear, to both Adam and Mitch, what happened if you were different in high school.

"There's something wrong with his eyes", Mitch commented.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, it's almost like there's nothing behind them".

An awkward silence followed. In the distance, was still trying to hoarde all of the students onto their separate buses. Adam, seeing their conversation was falling apart again, hastily changed the subject.

"Do you want to sit with Nathan and me on the bus?"

Nathan was Adam's geeky comic-reading friend who Mitch had honestly never seen speak a single word. Not really knowing him enough to be his friend or even an aquaitence, he only knew him due to the fact that Adam did. It was hard to say if anyone actually liked Adam; it was more that they chose to tolerate him.

"Mitch?"

"Huh?"

"What? Still thinking about Jude or something?"

Mitch shrugged. "I don't know. I don't have anything against Jude personally, but there's no way I'm letting him sleep anywhere near my tent when we get to Pequeno".

Suddenly, a voice chuckled behind him. "What was that about sleeping with boys in your tent, Mitch?"

Mitch knew who had spoken the words before he even had to force himself to turn around. A tan boy with jet-black hair was staring down at him, flashing evil light into his crooked mouth from his braces. There was a skull beanie hanging loosely on his head, along with baggy jeans that somehow been dyed black. Clenching his fists, Mitch accepted the facts that Zane Barrens and his friends were now standing in front of them.

Although there were definitely cliques in Spanish Rivers High School, Zane's group was the only one that had the unearthly presence of a gang. Although Mitch didn't know exactly what started his feud with Zane, he couldn't remember a single day when something hadn't happened between the two of them. In fact, it was very likely that nothing had started off their rivalry at all; Zane was the kind of person who simply took up hating people as a hobby.

Standing behind or beside him, all with looks of either pity or delight, were the rest of Zane's ragtag group of delinquents. Rory was, without any other character traits to describe him, a stoner. With purple sags under his eyes and a spaced-out expression on his greasy face, Mitch sometimes wondered if he even knew where he was. Holding Zane's arm to advertise the fact they were an item, J.C was smiling with a cocked and bushy eyebrow. Being mind-bendingly strong as much as she was mind-bendingly stupid and whiny, the only positive compliment about J.C was that she was easily one of the prettiest girls in the grade; even if most of her beauty was just punk-style makeup and eyeliner. Still, aside from being a selfish brat that took advantage of people, she was open-minded enough to believe anything. Next in line, standing beside the others like they wanted nothing to do with the group's antics were the two pacifists of Zane's group. Skylar was dirty blonde, athletic, quiet, and for the most part, really didn't have any part in tormenting anyone. Jesse was more of the tough bruiser, but still, she didn't abuse the power. In fact, both Skylar and Jesse, who were an on and off couple, seemed to detest violence altogether and mostly stood on the sidelines.

Mitch remembered on a field trip to the capitol how Zane had taken an M16 and blown off the head of a statue of the Dictator, the leader of the Republic of Greater East Asia. Amazingly enough, he never seemed to get caught. While some people were all talk and no action when it came to talking about the government, Zane was exactly the opposite. If you liked anything about the country, there was a good chance you would end up rolling on the ground with his footprint on your balls. Still, he wasn't a political hero. If anything else, he was a weak bully who really wasn't a fighter.

Adam glared. "Piss off, Zane".

J.C giggled in her nasally voice. "Does he want us to, "_piss off_?"

'C'mon Zane", Skylar began. "There's no point. Let's just leave!"

Zane glared. "Nobody asked you, Skylar. We have to be supportive of our friend Mitch if he ever wants to sleep with Jude at the beach".

"You're not getting anything out of doing this. Just leave him alone".

Like it had happened many times before, Zane shoved Skylar roughly in the stomach. He doubled backwards, but ceased to question his leader's actions. Jesse rolled her eyes, utterly bemused by the situation. Rory, on the side, still looked like he had no idea what was going on. He smelled like cigarettes.

"So Mitch", Zane continued. "If you need help coming out of the closet at any time, we're waiting to help you. You can count on u-

"Nobody thinks you're funny!" Skylar suddenly continued. "Right Jesse?"

Jesse, staring at the ground, shrugged. "I guess".

The way Zane treated his friends was almost sickening to watch. There seemed to be a pattern nearly every single time. Zane, and occasionally J.C, would harass their victims while Skylar and Jesse, both having weak moral stamina, would stay on the side in fear of doing anything. The way Mitch guessed it, they looked up to how vocal and independent Zane was and followed him like a God. When they were too deep in the gang, they were too dellusioned to see how corrupt their God really was. Either that, or Jesse and Skylar were just cowards who couldn't even stand up for themselves, nonetheless other people. Zane was a kind of person who took up hating as a hobby, and like everyone else that took it up, he always had followers.

"Skylar, I don't care if I'm funny or not", Zane growled. "All I care about is the fact that you don't know when to shut up. Are you happy now? Great. Now, where were w-

Suddenly, without warning, a girl's arm appeared in front of all of their faces. When Mitch blinked, he registered a healing and shallow cut directly over the wrist. After that, glancing up at the face, he found Terry Klingerman staring down at him with her blank and hollow eyes.

Her hair was frizzy and knotted, almost like she had never combed it in her life. It had once been blonde, but for an unknown and unearthly reason, it had faded to uneven strands of gray that made her look like an old woman in a young girl's body. It was a shame, because past her slight acne, Terry had a pretty face that she simply seemed to have lost hope in altogether. With her lanky body, she was almost like a scarecrow that was propped up on sticks for other people to stare at. She didn't seem to care much either. The only real word to describe her was, well, a, "mess".

However, the real thing that caught Mitch's eye was the series of cuts and bruises on her arms; the ones that seemed so placed there that they had to be self-inflicted.

Terry's lip quivered. "I…I did that…"

"For attention", J.C cut in coldly. "You're not fooling anyone, Klingerman".

And with that, the strangest thing imaginable happened. Quickly rolling up the sleeve of her tattered sweatshirt, Terry sniffled and started to run. In fact, she didn't stop. Dashing over duffel bags and shoving her way through crowds of students, causing almost all of them to stare, she continued to sprint until she was out of the parking lot, and soon, running down the street. In almost half a minute, Terry had vanished around the corner.

For several seconds, the remaining students stood in complete shock and silence as everyone quietly registered what had just happened. Then, laughing like a hyena, J.C finally spoke in her unpleasant voice.

"What a fucking nutcase!"

"You guys are assholes" Adam sighed.

Before anybody could even thinking of doing anything, Zane glared and shoved his black and faded sneaker into Adam's chest. He fell back roughly into the muddy ground that was still wet from the rain showers from the week before. Several people were now watching from the sidelines now, drawn to the possible idea of violence.

"Shut your mouth, Adam. It'll do good for you".

Angrily, Mitch stood up. "Y'know, for somebody that's so into changing the country, you probably make them pretty damn happy by making sure everyone turns against eachother".

"You don't know anything about me, Mitch. By the way, cut that mop on top of your head and get a haircut that doesn't make you look like a faggot".

Mitch lost it. He sprung on Zane, swinging his fists wildly in the air as he felt himself thrust to the ground. His nose was bleeding from the blow, but still it didn't stop him. The moment he steadied himself again, he managed to angle his leg out to kick Zane in the shin, who responded by throwing out his elbows to protect himself. J.C was beginning to squeal in girlish glee behind them.

"They're fighting!" she shrieked. "_They're fighting_!"

Mitch swung another punch in howled in agony, knowing Zane was probably doing the same. He had swung another punch by connected with Zane's fist, nearly cracking his fingers apart. He swore furiously, but retaliated by attempting to kick Zane again. It didn't work. Instead, he ended up in a tight headlock against Zane's stomach.

Zane was ranting in rage. _"I'll kill you! I'll kill you!"_

However, before Zane could, Mitch felt long fingernails grasp the back end of his shirt. _A girl? _Whoever the girl was, she was easily stronger than Zane and him combined, due to the fact that she was able to tear them both apart from eachother. Mitch stumbled backwards, nearly toppling over the girl's heel as he was sent sprawling back into the mud beside Adam, who seemed to be complaining about the state of his new polo shirt. When he turned back, he realized suddenly why the girl had seemed so strong; he also realized that it hadn't even been a girl that had stopped the fight between Zane and him.

"Eat shit and die, Peter!" Zane screamed.

Peter Juntz pursed his lips, causing the red lipstick to the glitter in the sun. Some cross-dressers were sloppy, not having the right face to pass as a girl, but Peter definitely wasn't; his face was feminine and baby-faced. His appearance was so good that he almost wasn't even a boy dressing up; he practically was a girl. Almost the entire class remembered the memorable occasion at a football game where a senior had started hitting on Peter and nearly fainted when he realized the truth. For the most part, from the side of the school that wasn't homophobic and brainwashed, he was well-respected. Along with being a stellar sports star and athlete, usually humiliating the other team when a cross-dresser beat them, he was something of a leader and parental figure among the student body. He had an answer or bit of advice for almost anything.

Peter smiled. "Eat shit and live, Zane".

Now that they had attracted a large amount of attention, including several teachers that were probably staring, Zane gritted his teeth and stormed away, making the chains he was wearing on his belt jingle aggressively. J.C quickly followed in a huff, along with Rory and Jesse. Skylar, however, was the only one who really bothered to stay.

"Sorry about Zane", he sighed. "He doesn't know any better. He's really a nice guy when you get to know him".

"It's cool", Mitch said, not believing anything he had just heard.

With a forced smile, Skylar waved awkwardly and hurried away to his girlfriend and gang, leaving Mitch and Adam standing behind.

"Your lip's bleeding, Adam".

Mitch had almost forgotten that Peter was still standing beside them. He was watching as Zane's group walked away, almost like he was daring them to try and come back.

"Oh, thanks". Adam rubbed his mouth with the sleeve of his polo shirt. "Want to sit with us on the bus?"

"Thanks for the offer, but I'm sitting with the twins. In fact, they're probably wondering where the hell I am. I'll see you guys later. We can all meet up on the beach when we get there".

As Peter jogged away in his tight skirt, Adam shook his head. "Weird guy".

"You say that about everyone".

"Well, look around here. It's true. I can't wait to get through high school and get the hell out of this town. Once senior year is over, I'm never coming back to Spanish Rivers".

"What? Are you going to become a doctor or a lawyer or something?'

"I'm a straight-A student. Join some clubs, try a few cheap sports that don't require any thinking, and I'll get a scholarship".

Mitch grinned. "You'll never get out of this town. It's like a hole that you can't climb out of. Ten buck you're going to end up volunteering at the library".

"Bus B is boarding!" 's voice called. "_Bus B is boarding_!"

"That's us".

Swinging his duffel bag over his shoulder, Mitch began to walk toward the parking lot with Adam beside him. The entire freshman class would board different buses, all bound for the destination of Pequeno Beach where they would camp-out for three days. It wasn't exactly thrilling, and it wasn't exactly fun either, but it was a chance to get out of school that everybody ended up taking. As they walked across the courtyard, they passed several other faces of students they had known from their classes. Roxy, the spacey-looking drama club chick. Preston, the mascot and joke of the football team. Leana, the muscular and olive-toned lacrosse player and her monkey-faced friend June.

And her.

Sitting around the oak tree with skirts so short that were practically underwear, a group of giggling girls sat flipping through magazines and talking enthusiastically. Mitch knew that every school had a pack of girls like this, and at Spanish Rivers High, the leader of the preppy pack of cheerleaders went by only one name.

Amber Prescott.

With a tan body and a muscular figure from cheerleading and volleyball, Amber's stature at only a high schooler was perhaps more stunning than some of the front-page models that you saw at the pharmacy. Her blonde hair was always sleek like she had just washed it and her presence and way she carried herself was something every girl in the school tried to mimic. However, no matter how many people sucked up to her, it seemed almost set in stone that she was the Queen Bee of Spanish Rivers Community High School. As Mitch passed, he took notice of the daily suck-ups that were sitting around her. Shyla, red-faced and plump like a baking marshmallow, Erin, shady-looking and serious with a mole on her nose, Victoria, African-American with cornbraids that suited her calm face, and finally, Adrienne, with a large and rosy mouth that always seemed to be chewing away on her gum. It was hard to say if the five girls were technically friends, because for the most part, the cruel rumors and gossip they spread were mostly centered around a member of their own group. Still, friendly or not, Amber's clique was easily the most destructive force in the entire school. Picking who was, "in", and who was, "out", she ruled the social ladder with an iron fist that nobody dared to cross. There was a Latin phrase for it. _Canis Candem_? _Dog eat dog?_

"I know Amber's ass is beautiful, Mitch", Adam's voice suddenly cut in "But you're holding back the line".

Turning red, Mitch craned his neck to see that he had been too busy staring at Amber's clique that he had caused a hold-up in the crowd of students making their way to their buses. He caught sight of one of them whispering something to her friend as she glared at him. Moving along quickly, he moved into a hurried trot as Adam hurried along beside him.

"Sorry about that", Adam said. "I would have stopped to stare too. I don't know about Amber, but I think I might have a chance with Erin. I could work my way up the ladder if she gives me a chance".

Mitch grinned. "How are you supposed to get anywhere with a girl if you use dead baby jokes as a pick-up line?"

Before Adam could say any comeback, a voice that was both old and young rang through their ears.

"Adam, Mitchell, are you two on Bus B?"

, their biology teacher and special ed assistant, was standing behind them with an anxious expression on her face. Her blonde hair was slightly frayed in the back, but she was almost like a teenager in an old lady's body; all of the kids loved her. Her arms were outstretched over the wheelchair in front of her where Kevin Hashburg, diagnosed with cerebral palsy at birth, was smiling blankly. Darren Warner, who suffered from Down's Syndrome, was fidgeting with his fingers as he stared at the ground beside Kevin. Instead of casual and warm like always, 's eyes looked slightly frantic. She was massaging her beefy arm gingerly, almost like she had been bruised. Along with that, there was a purple and dark sag under her left eye that looked like it had been treated with cream. To add to it, she asked the question like it was life or death. Her clipboard was cradled in her arm.

"I think so", Adam replied.

Ms Harp's eyes grew wide. "You think so? Yes or no? _Answer me_!"

"Well, yeah, we're on Bus B. Right Mitch?"

With a slight look of remorse, she checked something off on her clipboard and looked softly at the two boys. For a second, it looked like she wanted to tell them something serious, but it passed and the usually fun and bouncy teacher gave them an emotionless glance.

"You've been transferred to Bus D. _Immeadidly_. Have any of you seen Terry Klingerman?"

"Yeah. She freaked out and ran down the street. Good luck catching her. She didn't look like she was going to stop".

Muttering something under her breath, shook her head again and flicked open her clipboard. She checked several names off before looking back up at them. "Would you two mind wheeling Kevin to the bus, too? was supposed to take the Special Ed class onto Bus A, but there wasn't enough room and she didn't even show up today. You know how to use his wheelchair, right?"

Before they could answer, she quickly rushed away with Darren, who was fidgeting with his fingers and giggling. Kevin smiled pleasantly in his wheelchair, unable to communicate, and Mitch did his best to smile back at him despite the bruise on his face. Gripping the handles of his wheelchair, he began to walk with Adam to their bus.

"What do you think was up with her?"

Mitch shrugged. "I don't know. It was weird though, right? She's always so bouncy and happy and stuff. Maybe she's having problems at home or something".

"Whatever. Let's go".

As they made their way toward Bus D, they caught sight of the other students who had also been switched. Miguel and his gang of ghetto thugs were walking and talking about a dirty joke as their leader quietly flicked and unflicked his new switchblade. Sometimes, Mitch wondered if Miguel took pride in being a complete stereotype. Then again, considering his hardass attitude, he probably didn't give it much thought. Mare was blasting metal music out of her headphones that she had probably stolen as she walked toward the bus. In fact, she had probably stolen everything she was wearing too; Mare was a klepto. Towering above the entire crowd, and directly behind Mare, four hundred-pound Logan wobbled as she glanced around with her beady and wet eyes. There were rumors going around that she suffered from a gland disorder, but then again, rumors were only rumors.

"Bus D", Adam pointed out.

Compared to the others, Bus D was easily the smallest. While the others had the capacity to fit around one hundred students each, the maximum that could fit in their bus would be half of that. A cross between a charter and a regular school bus, the odds were there wouldn't be any movie on the ride. Behind them, somebody was swearing about how they hadn't brought their Ipod.

There was only one student that had gotten to the bus before everyone else, and for some reason, nobody was really surprised. After all, while everyone tended to question everything in high school, Luke Graystone was just something that didn't have to make sense. Although Mitch considered himself a loner, Luke was far beyond that. Despite the fact that he had transferred to their school several years ago, he had never seemed to make up much of an effort to talk to anybody. Mostly, he would simply keep to himself, go to class, and go home in a robotic fashion. When you actually had a conversation with him, he was easygoing to say the least but it was clear he didn't want to speak to you any longer than he had to. Luke didn't want friends, and because of that, Luke didn't have friends. All he had were tormenters or people that cared indifferently about him.

However, what really made Luke a target for bullying was his choice in attire. Almost always, he wore a shark-tooth necklace that wasn't plastic, but an actual tooth. His hair was styled into a blonde ponytail that disguised the fact that his hair was longer than several of the girls in their grade. With his shady sunglasses in the mix, he would fit in perfectly at lifeguard training. Even through it all, Luke never seemed to be fazed or upset by any of it. He just shook it all off and carried on. As they passed by him, Luke didn't even bother to look. He just stared at the clouds as he hugged his duffel bag.

"Three days camping out in a hellhole", Adam said. "Ready?"

Mitch, taking his eyes off Luke who was still staring into space, didn't answer. Adam's attitude, like it did every day, was finally doing a decent job of pissing him off. Clicking his tongue piercing again, he parked Kevin's wheelchair beside the bus door.

"Somebody will stop by in a couple minutes to open up the wheelchair ramp", Mitch explained. "Just wait here".

As they walked away, Mitch pretended to listen to Adam as he watched his classmates crowd around the bus, waiting for the doors to open.

_High school was complicated._

He thought about everyone who was different, like Luke, or Terry, or Lea, who were chewed out for the sole fact that they didn't fit in. Society shaped people to fit in, but whoever refused to do so was considered an outcast immeadidly. It was cruel, it was relentless, and unfortunately, it was just something that happened that couldn't be avoided. Maybe that was why he chose to separate himself from everyone else and just stand on the side to listen to Adam's complaints; either that, or it could have been something else altogether.

Climbing up the stairway onto the bus, in almost the same instant, every single student made the same realization.

There weren't any seats.

The forty-one of them, minus Terry, had entered an eggshell-white room with schoolbus windows that had been boarded up with wooden planks. There were several holes in the metal floor, where the bus seats had been uprooted like tree trunks, and a large metallic box that resembled an intercom hanging above the exit door. Several students were standing in place, too shocked to move, while some had decided to fight and struggle to break through the mob of students that were still rushing into the bus. Chris Barrister, the quarterback and registered dickhead, was yelling in fury as he struggled to push his way into the bus.

"Let me in, you faggots!" Chris roared. "_Let me in_!"

Between the mob of kids trying to get on and the mob of kids trying to force their way out, nobody had any chance of realizing what was going on. Caught between confusion and fear, Mitch looked around at his classmates. Peter was standing in shock in the middle of the chaos, struggling to yell out for an explanation that he obviously wasn't going to get. Fat Logan prevented anybody from getting off the bus, blocking the entire entrance door with her bloated belly. Jude Mercedes, who it now turned out had come to school, didn't look fazed at all. In fact, he looked mildly interested in what was going on.

"Hey!" Chris yelled. "_You_!"

The quarterback's anger was directed at the man that was behind the driver's seat several feet in front of them. There was a red bandanna tied around his head and he looked almost motionless. Chris brandished his fists and dashed forward but, literally, was halted to a stop. Shocked, he brought a trembling finger up in front of him and touched something solid that was blocking them from the driver. He banged his hand with a soft ding and his lip trembled.

"It's..._It's _a glass wall!"

The Latino bus driver with the red bandanna slowly turned around in his seat beyond the glass wall. He was wearing what resembled an airline oxygen mask, but clamped into multiple clouded tubes that traveled under the driver's seat. He brought his hand up, giving the class a girly and twittery wave with his fingers. The fact that he didn't seem fazed by the situation made it definite to Mitch that this was a kidnapping. But…why didn't he care? Maybe it was because he was getting so tired…_so tired…_

Suddenly, Mitch realized why it was such a hassle for the students to get off the bus. Beefy men in uniform were standing at the door, butting in the class with the blunt ends of their rifles. One of them had a goofy-looking cowboy hat that almost seemed to be mocking the situation. There seemed to be a large-scale riot going on outside and screams and protests were echoing as the students that were still outside dashed onto different buses. For just a split second, Mitch thought that he heard a gunshot out on the courtyard. Several seconds later, the sound of somebody howling in agony told him that he had.

"Let us out!"

"What the hell is going on?"

"I'm scared!"

"Roxy? Is that you?"

"That intercom box is breathing in gas or something!"

"I'm scared!"

"_Let us out_!

Suddenly, Kevin Hashburg, with the sound of clattering metal, went sailing through the door as the soldiers threw him from his wheelchair into the bus. It turned out that Mitch had been wrong about somebody opening the wheelchair ramp for him. Kevin let out a strange and incomprehensible squeal on the ground. The moment he was safely situated in hell with the rest of them, the doors slammed shut. Now, more than any of them had in their entire lives, they were tired.

"We're b-b-b-breathing something, M-m-mitch… ", Adam sputtered. "We're…_wuhh…_

Unexpectedly, Luke spun in front of them, his ponytail flailing in the air. He made a desperate grab for Mitch's shoulder, almost like he was trying to balance himself. His frantic eyes now looked heavy, almost like it took all of his power to keep them open. Mitch realized he was feeling the same way.

"I change my mind!" Luke shrieked. "I don't want! _I don't wanna…_

Suddenly, Luke Graystone collapsed to the ground like an overripe coconut falling from a tree. He banged his head hard. Several students around him screamed as they backed away from him, but almost like fainting was contagious, everyone slowly began to follow suit. Logan's massive body was slumped like a bloated whale that had been stranded on a beach. Peter was lying against the wall like a bum on the street. Jude, who it turned out had come to school, was lying in the corner beside J.C. Out of the forty-one students to fall, Mitch was the twenty-fourth. Adam was the thirty-sixth.

Thirty seconds after the forty-one members of Bus D collapsed in a heap on top of eachother, the Latino bus driver flicked off the switch above the ignition and carefully removed the oxygen mask from his stubble-coated face. For a second, he felt pity. And then, realizing this was the thirty-second class that he had provided transportation for, he shook the idea away, got the signal from the soldiers outside, and began to drive out of the parking lot.

The sleeping gas had done its job.


	3. Day 1: Hour 1: 42 Students Remaining

He felt like he was in a tunnel full of heat.

It was suffocating him. It swallowed him like a smothering pillow, but he couldn't move his body at all to defend it. His fingers twitched, but that was all the movement he was able to make. Sweat beat down his forehead as he struggled to make sense of the situation. His head felt like an over-inflated balloon pulsing….and pulsing…like a heart.

Mitch's mind was playing rock. _Springsteen. Mercury_. _Lennon._ _Miller. I met you on somebody's island…you thought you had known me before...I brought you a crate of papayas...they waited all night by your door_

_What had happened? Had he walked onto the bus with Adam? Had he been talking to Zane? No, he had been fighting with Zane!_

The tunnel was so tight and suffocating that he thought that his head would explode. His brain was pulsing, and any second, it would burst. His throat was stuffed with air, and he just couldn't move his body.

_So hot…_

Suddenly, Mitch Kelley awoke breathing as hard as he could. His sleeve was wet from drooling in his sleep, and he realized that he had fallen asleep with his nose and mouth pressed against his sleeve? But why hadn't he turned over? That was the natural reaction, right? Turn around in your sleep to the other side when you couldn't breathe?

He gripped for the arm of his bus seat, but suddenly realized he had never even sat down. In fact, he had never even boarded an actual bus. The image of his classmates, all dropping to the floor like lifeless bodies in that white room, flashed through his mind. Groaning under his thumping headache, Mitch forced himself to glance up.

_He was in a classroom_.

Moonlight shone through the boarded-up windows like a bad omen. Before he had woken up here, he distinctively remembered it being the middle of the afternoon. How long had actually passed?

The classroom he was in was dark and gloomy, and Mitch felt sympathy for whoever had to learn here. A scratchy blackboard was in the front of the room, and a lone nail painfully edged out from the bottom of his seat. In front of him, he made out the shadowy and hazy figure that was J.C Brooke. She was slumped over on her desk, and her red and black hair covered her face like a polluted beach. To his right, Roxy, one of the mainstream girls who was in the drama club, blinked vacantly and tried to understand what was going on. In the front row, farthest away from him, he saw Adam. He had already awoken and was worriedly glancing around like a rat lost in a maze.

That was when Mitch first noticed the collar.

It was gray and uncomfortable-looking, tightened around Adam's neck like some kind of dog tag. A red light beat every second on it; it took Mitch a moment to see that it was corresponding to Adam's heartbeat. Reaching up his neck, Mitch felt something cold and metal; his own collar.

Moaning from his headache, Mitch felt like a jackhammer was pounding in his skull as the steel door in front of the classroom opened with a creak and slammed shut. A man, chubby but muscular, with red stubble on his chin walked in like a drill sergeant. His face was expressionless, just like the faceless men in uniform who walked in after him. As they entered the front of the classroom, they all raised their hands in a patriotic salute. They were soldiers.

"Wake up, class", the man barked. "There will be no sleeping during today's lecture".

_Was this some kind of sick joke? _Groaning softly, Mitch forced his aching head up from the ancient desk. The soldiers almost looked identical standing in their frozen salute, stripped of any dignity. Shaking his shaggy hair out of his eyes, Mitch cautiously watched the man.

"I'll make this simple", the man began. "You are on an island called Cuna Cielo, off the coast of Florida. The residents were evicted for their homes for the sole purpose of this game. Your exact location is not important; your goal is. My name is Reynold Burke. You may call me Mr.Burke and nothing else".

Clearing his throat, Mr.Burke continued. "Your class has been selected for the Raising Hand Program".

Any noise in the room suddenly fell still. Mitch's blood ran cold like a reptile. At that time, anybody could have said something, and in the end, being caused by sheer fear, anything would have been acceptable. However, that wasn't the case if your name was J.C Brooke. Not even the least bit frightened or dazed by the situation, she stood up from her desk.

"I think there's been some kind of mistake", J.C said, making sure the whole room could hear her. "I know I'm part of the class, but do I really belong with _them_?"

Although the seriousness of the situation didn't call for it, several people groaned. Although she was one of the prettiest girls in their entire grade, J.C Brooke's entire tough and pretty image was based off makeup and the large number of piercings, injections, tanning sessions, and other things that had shaped her into who she was. They called it, "makeup", for a reason. Whatever way she could present herself, the prettier she was on the outside, the uglier she was on the inside.

Burke grinned. "You're Josephine Carol Brooke, am I correct?"

"J.C".

"Alright, Miss J.C".

Reynold Burke walked toward J.C coldly. With a sneer, she folded her arms, still oblivious to how horrible the situation was. Either that, or she was a complete idiot.

"You may have gotten through life simply relying on other people to fix your mistakes", he sighed. "You've all cheated yourselves through life, fighting, disrespecting authority, and occasionally, even attacking the _government_. You've all lived in childhood fantasies where you thought you would be protected. Well, Ms.Brooke, I have something very important to tell you".

In a flash of movement, before anybody could do anything, Burke pulled back his fist and smashed it roughly into J.C's naturally tough-girl, pretty face. Her mop of red and black hair swayed backwards as she collapsed backwards into her desk. In horror, she brought her black nails up to her face, coming back with a trickle of the blood that was leaking from her slightly split cheek.

"It's time to grow up".

For several seconds, nobody in the class spoke.

Then, the entire room erupted into a wild frenzy. Mitch leapt up from his seat like it was an instinct and made a dash for the boarded windows. In the corner of his eye, Chris screamed angrily and punched his fist into the boarded window, causing blood to stream from his knuckles. Peter swore furiously and jumped out his seat, falling onto the ground in the process. The only students that remained in their seats were Terry Klingerman, who sat with her hands folded, Jude Mercedes, who was still smiling arrogantly, Darren Warner, who was fidgeting with his fingers, and Kevin Hashburg, who couldn't have gotten up even if he wanted to.

"Now, now", Mr.Burke sighed. "Calm down".

Burke shook his head, and Mitch watched him nod stiffly at the soldiers. In an instant, each of the six soldiers were holding pistols, and also in an instant, all of them were fired rapidly into the air.

_Crack!_

The cracking sound rang through his ear as the air reeked with gunpowder. In the back of the room, Mare, the proud kleptomaniac, shrieked a war cry under a stream of swears and fell to the ground. Even though her wound definitely wasn't fatal, Mitch could see the blood making her jeans wet as she cringed. It would be like walking on nails.

"Now", Burke continued. "Find your seats".

Mitch quickly returned to his seat, still massaging his sore hands from banging on the boarded windows. The whole world felt like a dream, and Mitch silently prayed that he would wake up. Everything moved with the horrible sense of daze, like walking into the light out of a movie theater.

There wasn't one student in Spanish Rivers High who hadn't heard of the Raising Hand Program. As a young child, a common insult had been, "go die in the program!" Along the same lines of, "go to hell", it was never taken seriously. Because of this, all forty-two of them had entered high school hardly caring about the mysterious operation: students killing eachother. It was broadcasted nationally on television every year, and in the end, it was deemed like nearly every other reality show. It was offensive, it was lame, and above all, it was entertaining.

And now, they were all in it.

Ever since they were in kindergarten, the program had seemed like a bad lottery; nobody ever won a lottery. It had been hidden away from him, and had come to him just like how third-graders learned about dirty topics through rumors and neighborhood stories.

_We must kill eachother._

The words stood still, printed in his head solidly. He needed a plan. Adam. He could team up with Adam and blow the island sky high. Or Peter. Peter would be guaranteed to find a way out of this mess. In the corner of his eye, sitting two rows away, Peter looked terrified and helpless; it was the most frightening thing Mitch had ever seen.

"My soldiers found one of you ten blocks away crying behind a dumpster", Burke continued. "Likewise, she didn't get the chance to miss out on this field trip". Terry, the strange girl with the sliced-and-diced wrist, was sitting in the center row. Her hair, like a frizzy electrocuted dog, covered her like she was some kind of Seussical character. "Like I was saying, children, you have all been selected for the Raising Hand Act. If you do not know what it is, let me put it plain and simple: You will be given weapons and forced to kill eachother. That is the basis of this game. You're currently in the school on Cuna Cielo, an island near the Florida Keys and slightly off the Gulf. You will have three days…"

Suddenly, Burke stopped in the middle of his sentence. Surveying all of their terrified and troubled faces, his previously vacant face suddenly broke into a grin.

"I see", he sighed. "This still hasn't sunken in yet, has it? Killing eachother? Well, let me be of assistance. You see, in my class, when the students fail to pay attention, I ask them a question".

Almost instantly, Burke's eyes scanned the room and locked on Kevin Hashburg. Kevin, without his wheelchair, was like a worm trying to squirm into his hole. He lopsidedly hung off his desk, occasionally slipping off slightly. He let out a low mumbling sound as all of his classmates stared at him.

"You must be Kevin Hashburg or Darren Warner", Burke concluded. "I was informed there were two in the class who suffered from a retardation"

_Retardation. _Mitch glared angrily up at Burke, but didn't dare to say anything. He glanced over at Mare Ewing, who was still swearing silently and massaging her bloody leg. Already, Mitch could tell she was not going to last long; _all of the money invested in hair dye gone to waste._

"Well, I'll take it that you're Kevin Hashburg", Burke continued. "Well, let's see if you can answer my question. I'll make it easy for an idiot. Say the sentence, "We will kill eachother".

Kevin's eyes stared forward, and on the back of his neck, a trickle of sweat poured down. Mitch's hand trembled on his seat as he watched Kevin Hashburg, otherwise known as that boy in the wheelchair, struggling to answer the question.

"_He understands", _Mitch thought silently. "_He wants to answer. He knows something bad will happen…"_

Suddenly, Risa Ridgeway sprung up from her seat. Lea Passington, the bible-reading girl who was sitting behind her, jumped back in surprise. Even though she was shaking uncontrollably, Mitch could plaintively see that Risa was trying to be brave. She was one of the mainstream, "nice", girls that seemed to take it as her duty to be everyone' s friend. Aside from the fact that she was the class president, and an organized and competent one at that, there really wasn't much else about her.

"That's not fair!" Risa shrieked. "You know Kevin can't answer the question! He has cerebral palsy, _you jackass_!"

In the front row, Mitch saw Adam attempting to motion Risa to sit down. Obviously, nobody wanted another unlucky Mare Ewing who would be crippled for the game. However, Risa didn't break her stride; she stared at Burke, almost like she was trying to stare him down. The soldiers beside Burke all had their rifles at ready.

"If I remember from the government files, you're Risa Ridgeway, am I correct?"

Risa nodded, but Mitch could still see that she was shaking.

"Well, let me tell you something, Ms.Ridgeway. In this country, nobody is born equal. Communism had proved itself to be unreliable, so equality is completely out of the question. We are born unequal and we will die unequal; Kevin is just like everybody else. That takes into account of things like retardations. Now, Risa, if you do not sit back in your seat, these fellows here will have to take you of the running for the competition".

The soldiers all cocked their pistols with a horrible clicking sound, but there was no need; Risa was already back in her seat. Still grinning, Burke glanced down at the clipboard in his hands.

"Oh, and by the way, Risa. Your parents are dead. They were killed two hours ago when they were informed of what happened to you".

The classroom gasped but Risa didn't say anything. Her eyes quietly rolled up in her head, and it took Mitch a minute to realize that she had fainted in her chair. Burke had announced the murder of the Ridgeway family like it was a typical trip to the supermarket; nothing special. Just two more numbers on the list of dead people.

"Now, Kevin", Burke continued. "Simple-minded Kevin. Answer my question. Say the sentence, "We will kill eachother".

Kevin's lips moved, sputtering saliva that dripped down his chin. He made sounds, but none of them were any knowledgeable words. His eyes were brimming with tears, and Mitch could see what was going to happen before anybody else had the chance; he had seen it in Kevin Hashburg's eyes. In the back row, Eddie Dunnerman, one of the strong and muscled football players, swore angrily under his breath.

Burke shook his head and in an instant, the soldier's guns, already cocked from the Risa incident, pointed robotically to Kevin Hashburg. He struggled to squirm out of his seat, but his paralyzed body was helpless.

"_Kevin_!"

Six bullets cracked in the air like lightning. Kevin Hashburg's head smacked into the chair repeatedly, almost like a dribbling basketball against his seat. Bullet holes, spewing black and blew smoke, instantly appeared across his face like a Picasso painting. A hammersmash of blood soaked across his shattered lower jaw, and in merely a second, even though it had seemed like an eternity, it was over. Kevin's finger twitched before becoming motionless.

"Christ!" somebody screamed.

Nodding silently to the soldiers, Burke sighed softly and broke out into a devious grin. "I'm sorry. I just needed the message to sink in. Oh, and the correct answer was, "We will kill eachother".

Burke signaled the soldiers, who quickly sprang into a salute and filed out of the room. Whistling like nothing had ever happened, he flipped open his clipboard. In the back of the room, the bloated sound of fat Logan vomiting echoed through the enclosed room.

_Oh, Kevin…_

Mitch felt like crying, but hating himself for it, no tears would come. Kevin Hashburg, the paralyzed boy who had done absolutely nothing wrong, had been shot and killed for physically not being able to communicate. The smell of his fresh blood began to stink up the room like cough syrup and a clean and sterile surgery room.

He glanced over at Adam, and saw he was sniffling quietly to himself. It was mostly sympathy for Kevin Hashburg, but it was obviously something else; the shock of seeing a murder for the first time in their lives. However, not all of the students seemed shocked and disgusted. Jude eyed the body without interest while Darren quietly rocked back and forth in his seat.

"Like I was saying, you are on an island divided into many zones. Every six hours, I will make announcements of who has died in the last several hours as well as which zones you cannot go into to. These are called Danger Zones, and be careful of them, because of those collar you're wearing. Oh, they won't come off, sweetie". (Mae Yamamoto, the nerd who had been tearing at her cold metal collar, immeadidly stopped) "They monitor your heartbeat, informing us of your location and if you're still competing in the game. If you linger into a Danger Zone, or attempt to escape the island, radio waves will be transmitted to the collars that will cause them to explode. Attacks on the school will not work because twenty-five minutes after you leave, the school is a permanent danger zone".

At the word _explode_, everyone hands instantly moved away from their collars like they carried the plague. At the same moment, the six soldiers returned with a rack of backpacks on wheels; some of them were pointed and in strange shapes like something was poking out of the fabric.

"But don't worry about that. It rarely happens. You should give it your all and be fighting instead of reading maps. There's forty-two, I'm sorry, forty-one of you remaining and are all eligible players; good luck. You will all be given backpacks with food, water, a flashlight, and a special weapon. All of the weapons will be different; they'll range from toothpicks to machine guns. But that's doesn't matter at all; it's all how you use your weapon. Every six hours, there will be an announcement, along with addressing new Danger Zones, that will say the names of your dead classmates. And guess what? If you win, you get to go home with a nice little prize as well. Now, do any of you have any questions? This is your last chance."

Suddenly, a raspy voice rang through the air. "I wanna' die people".

Mitch, along with everyone else, turned to stare at Darren Warner. He was fidgeting with his fingers, and when he looked up, he grinned like an innocent child at all of them. Darren's face was full of angular moles and pimples and his badly grown and cultivated sideburns stood out on his face. Although Mitch didn't know exactly what Down's Syndrome was, he knew it was definitely something that wouldn't help you in the program. Or would it.

Darren glanced up at all of them, but at the same time, his eyes didn't even look up. "I wanna' do the dying".

His voice was delicate for just a big person. While everyone else was deadly quiet, Burke laughed like it was a hilarious joke. "An eager competitor! That's what we love to see here! Someone's who raring to rip. Now, are there any real questions? Yes, Mr.Juntz".

Peter, who had been raising his red-nailed hand, slowly raised it down as he glanced from side-to-side, almost worried somebody was watching him. "What happens if we refuse to p-

"Stand up, Mr.Juntz".

Hugging himself, Peter stood up in front of his classmates. Despite the fact that, like most immature high schools, the student body of Spanish Rivers despised anybody different then them, Peter the drag queen was highly respected by mostly everyone. Now, he looked like an animal thrust into a cage and his eyes behind his mascara and make-up were wide like dinner plates.

"What happens if we refuse to play?" Peter continued.

"It's your choice to play or not, Mr.Juntz. Why? Thinking up a plan?"

"N-N-No…".

"That's a good thing, Peter, because if you were, and that plan succeeded and violated authority, we would have another Kevin laying on the floor. Do you want to be a Kevin?"

The soldiers cocked their guns, and in an instant, Peter was back in his seat. As much as he was still traumatized by Kevin's demise, Mitch knew in his mind that Peter dieing would be so much worse. Everybody else here was trivial, but everybody knew that the cross-dresser of Spanish Rivers High was destined for things much greater than working at the super market like the rest of them. He was young, he was determined, he was confidant, and most of all, he was alive. In Mitch's eye, every aspect of Peter was so blasted perfect. His death didn't even seem possible; it almost broke the laws of physics.

"Now", Burke continued. "Are there any other questions?"

Instantly, the pimply and chubby pig Meyerhold stood up from his seat breathing like he had just finished an eight-mile lap. His curly hair over his pudgy face looked wet and ragged and the entire front of his shirt was entirely drenched with sweat. "My mother said that the program only took dirty public schools!" Meyerhold shrieked. "I..I..I was enrolled to attend the Craven School of Art and Science next semester. I was already enrolled! There must have been some kind of mistake! I don't belong with _them_! I demand to be sent home immeadidly!"

Meyerhold was breathing and sweating like an animal that he thought all of his classmates were. Pimply, chubby, and easily coming from one of the richest families in the state, he was always quick to share his opinion about anything he wanted, usually his views on anyone less fortunate then him. The fact that his family was strongly conservative, loyal to the government, and supported the program entirely now seemed liked fitting irony. There were rumors floating around that his family had only enrolled him into public school due to temporary financial troubles, but whatever his story was, he was easily one of the least likable residents in Spanish Rivers. Along with that, he was a racist. A big one too.

"It's simple", Burke explained. "You were part of the class, you were transferred in the lottery, and now you're here. Live or die. It doesn't matter if you're rich or poor; your mommy's cash isn't what's going to save you now".

"But I-

"Sit down".

With a signal from Burke, the soldiers unloaded another hoarde of bullets at the ground near Meyerhold's feet, causing him to squeal and dance like a pig and quickly hurry back into his seat. In the back row, Jude started to snicker. Mitch wondered if he was the only one that actually took notice of it. Nontheless, it was terrifying.

"Comments?" Burke asked. "Questions? Complaints? Mean-spirited remarks? Death wishes? Anyone?"

Nobody spoke.

"Good. Now, if you just give me a moment to get several things in order.."

Kevin's corpse was beginning to stink up the classroom, and in the back row, the wrenching and sobbing sound of fat Logan vomiting splattered on the wooden floor. Many of the girls, especially the underdogs of Amber's clique, were sobbing. In the middle row, near the left, Miguel was addressing his friends with a stoned and serious look on his face that hid any emotion he was feeling. They had all known eachother since kindergarten. There were enemies in their class, rivalries, and most of all, friendships. And now, all of that would be broken.

Surveying the class, Burke smiled. One of the soldiers had given him a small packet lined in two even columns of names.

"Well, if there's no other questions besides complaints and remarks against the government, you'll be leaving now. As you leave, you will be given your bag. Please wait until you are far away from the school until you check your weapon". Whistling a bouncy tune, he returned to his clipboard. "We'll go girl, boy, girl, boy. For our first competitor, we have Boy #1, Zane Barrens".

At the mention of his name, everyone turned to Zane like a last resort. If Peter couldn't do anything, well, then Zane would have to have a plan! After all, in between defacing government property and calling the country the worst things he could think up, a guy like him almost seemed to live for something like the program. This was his chance; the only chance he would ever get to mess with the bigwigs behind this whole thing. There was no way he'd blow this ride, would he?

However, in a matter of seconds, the class delinquent crushed all their hope.

"What the hell are all of you looking at?" he barked. "Think for yourselves for once!'

Scowling, he shoved himself out of his desk, walking down the aisle as the chains hanging from his jeans jingled like Christmas ornaments. As he passed Mitch's desk, he spit, walked on, caught his backpack, and finally, departed down the hallway. Before he vanished from sight, he jabbed a middle finger into the air back at his classmates.

"God damn it!" Miguel screamed. "_Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!"_

Nobody argued with him, due to the fact they all felt the same way. Their last hope had let them down horribly. No matter how many protested now, it was unavoidable; the game was on.

"Girl #1", Burke shouted. "Give a hand for the one, the only, J.C Brooke!"

J.C, not at all fazed by the fact that she had been slapped across the face by a lumberjack-looking man, stood up, swished her dyed hair behind her back, and began to walk down the aisle. Although her hair was naturally blonde, she had dyed it so many times that everyone had just ceased to care at all. Even if she was pretty, that was only half the story. Besides being a manipulative and spoiled brat that took pleasure in the pain of other people, she was also a bully, much like her boyfriend who had left the school seconds before her. Walking toward the exit, she scowled as they tossed her the backpack, but didn't protest as she walked down the hallway and out of sight.

"Please welcome Boy #2, Chris Barrister!"

The routine continued. One-by-one, Mitch's former classmates left the school, as well as their innocence behind. Miguel Chavez (Boy #3), the hardened and self-proclaimed ghetto gangster left in so much cockiness that it should have been an automatic disqualification. Then again, like everything Miguel did, it was probably just an act. Others, like beachboy Luke Graystone (Boy #5), frizzy-haired freak Terry Klingerman (Girl #6), and science club dork Perry Rumbaugh (Girl #15) let in complete silence as their bowed heads didn't even look up to register their classmates. Halfway through the list, the foul stench of urine ran into the room; Meyerhold was sniffling softly and holding his crotch.

Finally, his turn arrived:

"Boy #10, Mitchell Kelley".

Biting his lip, Mitch stood up and hurriedly passed Adam's desk in the front row. He would have said something, but the rifles in the hands of the soldiers completely changed his mind. Catching his backpack, which turned out to be suprisingly heavy, Mitch forced himself not to look at Kevin Hashburg's body as he walked down the hallway. Shaking his shaggy hair out of his eyes, Mitch did his best, just like Zane had tried to, to hide the fact that he was scared out of his mind.

He had entered the program.

* * *

"_Hello Mitchell!"_

"_Hello Mrs.Toole..."_

_Mitch Kelley, then an elementary schooler, stood on the doorstep of his next-door neighbor. Her house smelt like cat litter and, matching the odor, was decorated with kitten ornaments. Mrs.Toole was a plump woman with a red face, almost like a stereotypical soccer mom. The only difference was that she didn't have children. She lived alone with her equally plump and red-faced husband._

_When Rosie Toole had called his mother on the phone, Mitch had been listening. From what he could piece together, she had been apologizing for his father's death long enough to lull his mother into a false sense of security. Once she was there, being a reporter, she popped the idea of doing an interview with Mitch for the local newspaper. She intended her article to focus on his feelings after his father's death and to help boost his self-esteem. Jumping at the chance, Mrs.Kelley, who hadn't grieved a second over her husband's death before working again, agreed._

_It never occurred to either of them that when children's parents died, they didn't want to publicize it to the whole world._

_Once they walked into Mrs.Toole's living room, past her six cats that were eating in the kitchen, she pulled out a notebook and pen from the drawer and explained how she wanted to make the experience, "comfortable", for Mitch. He had been tempted to tell her that if she wanted him to be comfortable, she could have let him leave right there._

_Instead, Mitch merely answered the questions in short answers, not giving her anything to work with. Finally, after a hot half an hour in a house that smelled like cats, Rosie Toole put her pen behind her ear and grinned before asking one final question._

"_How do you think you'll feel tommorow?"_

"_Better. I don't know"._

_Two days later, when the newspaper was published, all hell broke loose._

_The headline on the very front page proclaimed, "Boy Moves On After Loss Of Father: Story of Mitch Kelley". Prepared for the worst, Mitch opened it up and quickly began to read about how he was, "troubled", and, "a hero", and, "hoping for a better tommorow". Furiously, Mitch had been forced to endure school that day with hundreds of kids running up to him with clippings from the newspaper, especially Zane, quoting them and laughing in his face._

_When he got home, Mrs.Toole and her husband were gone and a, "For Sale", song was on her front lawn. Although it was hard for him to understand, Mitch, in second-grade at the time, decided that he didn't like adults, or other people, very much. Whenever you trusted them, they simply ran away._

* * *

The tropical night wind stung Mitch Kelley's (Boy #1_0_) cheek as he walked outside. Shivering without a coat, he struggled to fix his thoughts. He could wait at the school for Adam to come outside, but Spencers was far from Kelley in the alphabet. He could have teamed up with Peter, an idea that everyone else probably had to, but even though he had left merely two people before Mitch, he had already vanished. Even though he was certain he would blow his head off, Zane, along with J.C, had already vanished too.

The island seemed to be very expensive to live on; rich homes glared down at him from the forest trees and he could hear the sound of waves hitting the shoreline just behind the school. It was probally populated by elderly and retired couples; _what exactly had happened to them_ anyway?

With an exasperated sigh, Mitch jogged slightly into the bushes and tore open the zipper of his backpack. Inside, like Burke had said, he found two Poland Springs bottle of water, two greasy-looking bread roll, a map of the island, and a cheap disposable flashlight. At the very bottom, a light object that looked just like some kind of barber tool gleamed in the moonlight. When he clicked the soft button on the side, his eyes opened wide as an electric spark jumped out of it like he was playing God. It was a taser. They were the things you would see on television used by the police, but you could never picture having one in your hand. They were used to calm down riots…

_The program is a little bigger than a typical street riot…_

Suddenly, Mitch became aware of a presence around him. Quickly flickering on the flashlight, he let it illuminate his face like he was telling a ghost story. Shining the dim light, he managed to make out a ponytail; a girl?

Suddenly, the figure spun around and Mitch realized exactly why they had a ponytail.

It was Luke Graystone (Boy #5); the blonde and antisocial beachboy who had transferred to their school several years ago. His eyes opened wide for a second, completely shocked, but the moment he glanced at the moonlit taser in Mitch's hand, he erupted into movement and began dashing toward the bushes.

"_Jesus_!"

Before he had any time to react, it was too late. What seemed to be a leather-bound book (Luke's weapon?) had whacked him roughly in the face. Warm and wet blood leaked out of his nose, causing his eyes to become clouded and unconfused. Luke's face was unsteady in the moonlight, his expression unreadable as he prepared to swing back the book (was it a book or something else?) again.

"Ohhh…"

His fingers shook as he felt his aching face. It wasn't a particularly bad wound; in fact, it was just a nosebleed. However, it was the first time in his entire life that he had ever been attacked with the hope of being murdered. It just wasn't an easy thing to recover from, even if your life depended on it.

Mitch's eyes opened wide. "Stop! Stop! I'll give you anything you want!"

He struggled to scramble backwards, anything to save himself, but Luke let out a war cry and jumped behind him in a somersault. Even though Luke was shorter than Mitch, probably two heads, the force sent him tumbling to the sidewalk beside the bushes.

"Don't hurt me!" Mitch screamed. "_I'll give you whatever you want_!"

In an instant, Luke had wrenched the taser out of Mitch's hand. Closing his eyes, he waited for the moment Luke would electrocute him so hard that his heart, and collar, would stop beating.

It didn't happen.

When he opened his eyes, he managed to make out the figure of a boy with a ponytail and backpack frantically running in the moonlight. He was shoving the leather-bound object back into his backpack, and in his right hand was a taser. Luke Graystone had robbed him of his only weapon.

"Get back here you bastard!"

Grabbing his backpack and wiping the blood with his sleeve, Mitch took off sprinting after him.

* * *

Chris Barrister (Boy #2) hadn't taken his introduction into the rough world of Battle Royale harshly. In fact, compared to the real world, this entire island was just a child's playground. It was survival of the fittest out there, kill or be killed, and Chris was a natural-born winner. Along with being a member of the swim team and track, his real forte was football. It was uncommon for a freshman to become a quarterback, especially at a school where the seniors seemed overdosed on testosterone, but Chris, along with the fact that his father was the coach, had his ways. His entire life looking back at him, he couldn't recall a single time where he had lost anything; his entire family was one of winners. It was all just Darwinian logic; if you couldn't make it in life, there wasn't any real reason to live anymore. The weak were useless.

He was a proud All-American jock, a bully, and now, an aspiring killer. The weak animals died first, the strong survived, and Chris easily knew which side he belonged on. His family was one of proud and stellar winners, people who had gotten through life by knocking others out of the way, and it was clear to him who would be the one to knock their way out of the program.

Being the third to leave the school had only added to his ego. After sprinting for several minutes, he had finally settled down beside a run-down pile of wood.

"It's like an Italian restaurant", Eddie Dunnerman (Boy #4) commented.

Chris stared emotionlessly at both his friend and lackey, who was laying behind him against the stack of wood and termites. While exiting the classroom and walking down the aisle, Eddie had quickly grabbed a scoop of Kevin's brains for, well, no other reason but the fact that he felt like it. Although the soldiers had probably seem him do it, none of them had seemed to care very much. Chris had never seen brains before. Unlike the pictures in science textbooks, they were much more brown than the stereotypical pink.

"Almost like lasagna", he continued. "Do you think he felt the bullets come into his head, or do you think it was just over when they pulled the trigger?'

"Why the hell would you pick that up anyway?"

"Scare the others. I'll tell you, when I picked them up, Nicole stared at me like I was a lunatic. Nobody's coming anywhere near us, Chris".

Chris nodded. Like always, Eddie's actions really hadn't made any sense but to impress him. With a buzzed-cut head and volcanic and pimply moles all over his face, Eddie had never been popular or a hit with the girls. To top it all off, he was incredibly stupid too; he had barely avoided special education classes by having his parents complain. He didn't really appear to suffer from anything, but _damn_, he was slow. Chris meanwhile, with his swift and long blonde hair and tan face, was easily the player of the freshman class. All of the girls wanted to be with him, at least in his mind, and if they didn't, well, they were just bitches who were trying to prove something. Some said Chris was a stereotype; he gladly beat the shit out of all of them. It gave him power.

"We should wait for the others, Chris. Y'know. Jason…Mike…Leon…"

Chris glared. "Jason, Mike, and Leon aren't even in our class you idiot! In fact, Leon isn't even in our grade! They're probably camping out at a beach right now making bets on both of us".

"Well, I dunno' know. I don't wanna' die, Chris. You got a plan or something, right?'

"Hell yeah, I have a plan", Chris lied. "What weapon did you get?'

Eddie paused, almost like he had just remembered that they had all been instructed to kill eachother. He quickly bent over and unzipped his backpack on his lap, and pulled the flap open. Like Chris's, it had a flashlight, map of the island, two bread rolls and water bottles, and finally a weapon.

"A tork _wrench_?" Chris snapped. "You could've gotten a gun that could have blown this island sky high, and you had to get a _wrench_? What the hell is the matter with you? You're lucky your brains aren't the ones looking like lasagna instead of Kevin's!"

Eddie didn't answer. He seemed more disappointed than embarrassed. Chris had left out the fact that his own weapon had been a first-aid kit, complete with needles, medical tape, a bottle of aspirin pills, and several painkillers but it was too embarrassing; why would Chris Barrister, the ruler of the school who treated violence and adrenaline like a religion, get something that was meant to relieve pain?

"It's fine", Chris continued. "We'll just ambush some undeserving pussy with a gun, blast their head off, and take it from them. After that, we wipe the island clean and get off without a scratch on us. That's my plan. You're happy, right?"

"I guess".

Chris grinned. He didn't include the fact that he wouldn't hesitate to make Eddie a ruined mess on the ground when it came down to the two of them. The fact that Eddie, not seeing much in himself, idolized Chris made the entire thing even more of a breeze. The weak ones, just like they did out in the real world, would be finished off first. After that, a good percentage would massacre eachother, hopefully leaving just Eddie and him. The feeble and weak ones of the gene pool were meant to die while the victors went out to conquer. It was simple enough to follow, but unfortunately, there were some that just didn't give up.

Looking out through the woods, Chris was able to make out the front yard of the school through the trees and bushes. A student, probably numbered somewhere between fifteen and twenty, quickly skidded in their path and doubled around, sprinting toward the woods near the back of the school. Also, a small clique of girls were talking in a hushed whisper near the entrance of the woods. Chris had noticed them much earlier on, but because one of them was brandishing a sleek pistol in their hand, he decided it was best not to screw around with him. In general, he respected women. However, he couldn't deny that a girl's feelings were nothing compared to a good lay. There was no shortage of hot girls in their class: Amber, J.C, Leana, and Victoria (_was that her with the pistol_?) were all great eye-candy.

"See anyone Chris?"

"Nobody worth our time!" he barked back. "We're moving out of here in a couple of minutes. If you see anybody who's easy picking, tell me. Go for the guys first, and if you have to, choose a girl as a last resort. We're going to go the north side of the island first before anybody else; nobody's coming near us and nobody's leaving in one piece. This whole thing is in the bag, Eddie".

"Are you excited or something?"

"Why shouldn't I be?" He almost found himself laughing. "It's like weeding out the gene pool. If somebody's not going to make it, shoot em' and end it now. I've always wanted to prove a point, and what better chance then now? Survival of the fittest, man".

"What's a gene pool?"

"Forget it. I shouldn't have even tried to explain it to you", Chris sighed. "Anyway, who else could we meet up with? The more of us there are, the more intimidating it is. There's strength in numbers".

"Was Christine on the bus?"

"That cheating whore? No, she wasn't; I'm glad too. There has to be someone else here we know that would meet up with us".

"Ray?'

"He got suspended for passing out those laxative brownies".

Eddie's eye lit up. "Preston!"

Chris scowled. Aside from being the mascot and joke of the football team, Preston was the exact definition of why Chris despised the rest of the world except himself. Unable to run a lap around the track without stumbling and unable to catch a baseball without putting his hands out to protect himself, Preston was a low player in the gene pool. His only true connection to Chris and Eddie was that he was the mascot of the football team, and almost every practice and game, they would find a way to torture him mercilessly. Whether it was a swirly in the toilet or beaten up while in his costume, Preston was the target of so many jokes, it was amazing how he just managed to shake it all off. In his mind everyone one his friend and nobody was going to change that.

"Well…If there's really no one else, we'll just let him tag along. He'll be grateful since he wouldn't last a minute out here alone. On the last day, when it's just the three of us, we throw him into a Danger Zone or something and escape. I hate that kid; he's dying on this island whether he likes it or not. I'll make sure of it. He'll do whatever we tell him until the time comes, though".

"Okay". Eddie looked slightly thrown off, but with a sudden smile, he continued. "This is going to be fun, huh, Chris?"

He tossed him Kevin's brains, and with slight hesitance, Chris caught them with his left hand. They were cold and wet, and luckily, it wasn't light enough for him to take a good look at them. They had belonged to a useless person; Chris was glad to chuck them like they were nothing. Squeezing them softly in his hand, he swung them back like a sloppy baseball which Eddie caught with ease.

"Yeah", Chris sighed. "The next three days are going to be interesting".

He wondered if Eddie's brains would look the same as Kevin's. If he couldn't figure it out, he would find out in three days when it came down to the two of them. Eddie was more of a nuisance than a friend anyway. When the time came, it would be good riddance.

"I'm pumped up", Eddie said. "I can't wait to get this thing started".

"We'll wait for Preston first", Chris. "Just remember, Eddie. There's winners and losers. Pick a side".

"Sure thing, man".

That was when Eddie started laughing. It was a soft giggle at first, and slowly, it built up into a sardonic and twisted laugh that somehow, didn't give out their location. It made Chris wonder even more if there was actually something wrong with Eddie, but in the end, he decided it was best to not get too involved with him. After all, his friend was in the moment, and if he was, it meant that he had bought his lies.

Springing up from the ground, Eddie dug his fingernails into the brains of Kevin Hashburg, ripped them apart, and screamed into the twilight:

"_Battle Royale_!"

* * *

"Making her way down the red carpet, everyone please welcome Girl #19, Erin Thompson!"

Back in the classroom, the girl was frozen in her seat. Everything that had happened into in the last twenty minutes had the strange hyper-reality quality of a dream. She had seen everyone wake up. She had seen the guards gun down Kevin like a splattering water balloon. She'd even seen that there was no way any of this could be possible. After all, although she knew she was unlucky, this was a horrible time to win the lottery. There were thousands of thousands of other schools in the country, thousands of other students who deserved the program much more than they did, and still, it was reality. _Come on wake up. You've been unlucky before, but this is a joke. There was no way it could be this bad…right?_

"Ms.Thompson, I think we all agree that your pretty little face doesn't need a bullet hole. Get out of the classroom or get out of the competition".

Snapping back to the real world, the instincts of Erin Thompson (Girl #19) kicked in and she quickly made her way down the aisle. There weren't many other students left now. Aside from her, only about five, all terrified at the prospect of leaving last, were remaining. She caught her bag roughly and quickly hurried out into the hallway that had swallowed up everyone she cared about.

Unlike Amber, the Queen Bee who was a tanned blonde, Erin was brunette and shady-looking like a black-and-white photograph that had been soaked in rain. Her skin was pale and dough-colored and her shiny brunette hair always made her look like some kind of plant that had been left behind window shades. Still, even if she looked dark and gloomy, part of that shady image was kind of attractive to some people. If you couldn't hook up a date with Amber, there was a good chance a pity date with her pal Erin was your last resort as a self-esteem booster. Then again, considering how she tended to reject almost everyone, Erin had seen a lot of boys' faces. Some okay, some bad, and most that she hadn't considered enough to even remember what they looked like.

It was a mold. It was almost like an assigned base for the rest of your life. _Amber, you go be popular and party all night. Shyla, you pal along with her and pretend you're doing something useful. Oh, Erin's still here? Just wander off into the corner and screw, I guess._

The more she denied it, the more it became true. Honest to the definition, Erin was a whore. It was ironic though, because honestly, she really didn't enjoy sex at all. She viewed it strongly as something that should only be done when you really meant it, and to the right person too. Unfortunately, she had fallen into her mold that high school had made for her. If she wanted to stay popular, and if she wanted to stay balanced at the decent social level she was at, she would just screw. Who cared about self-respect? In Erin's eyes, although she knew it was pathetic, all you needed was people liking you. Why did you need to like yourself? The opening for a, "slutty girl who was Amber's friend", was open, and seeing her opportunity, Erin had nabbed it in a matter of seconds.

She hated herself for it.

Erin Thompson (Girl #19) blinked. Outside the school, past the double doors that had been locked open with a cinderblock to lead them into hell, the night was dark and lukewarm. Unlike she had expected, there wasn't a trace of any of the other students that had already exited the school. Or maybe they were just watching her from the bushes. Aiming at her head with a rifle and calculating. Or maybe Erin was just being paranoid. After all, in the Battle Royale, friends turned against friends and enemies banded together. After all, after watching the program on television since it had originated, Erin was familiar enough with the harsh world to know that the outcome, if any outcome at all, wasn't going to be pretty.

Shaking her hair out of her eyes, she quickly began to scurry away up the hill from the ditch that the school seemed to be in. Pushing herself through the prickly and thorny bushes, feeling one of them slice her leg like a macabre papercut, she let herself fall down onto the ground in a rumpled mess.

"_Caught in a landslide_", Erin mind sang. "_No escape from reality…"_

She was going insane. Just five and a half damn minutes into this mess that the government had put them into had already made her mind wander. In every Battle Royale, the ones that went insane usually just wandered around until high-bidded and more brutal players picked them off. But who would come after any of them? After all, the class had its share of freaks and self-proclaimed badasses who probably lived for this sort of thing, but nobody could be that bad. Zane was tough and worshipped violence, but that was probably just his image. Darren was messed up to begin with, but he probably didn't even understand what was going on.

"_The Mercedes triplets are nuts though_", she thought. "_Jude at least is_".

With a sigh, Erin threw her backpack off her shoulder and quickly unzipped it. Inside, like Burke had said, there was a supply of disgusting-looking bread rolls, two water bottles, a flashlight, a map, and finally, her supplied "weapon". Or if you could call it a weapon to begin with.

"DAMN IT!"

Erin thrusted the brick hard over her shoulder, hearing it land with a soft thud several yards away. That was it? Instead of a machine gun or at least a knife, they had given her something she could have found in her dad's toolshed back home? Hell, in her dad's toolshed at home, there was almost a whole list of weapons that she would have wanted instead of this. _Bolt cutters. A chainsaw. Hacksaw. Power drill. Are you watching me now, Mom? Think I'm unlucky now?_

And that was when a hand covered her mouth.

"Don't say anything", a voice hissed.

For a second, she considered screaming. However, once she registered the voice, it was almost a miracle.

Erin rolled her eyes in relief at the cornbraided African-American girl that was kneeling beside her. Her braids were dangling out of her pink sweatshirt hood like snakes. If they belonged to anybody else they may have even bit her, but luckily, she had run into the one person that was basically the living representation of peace. Even if she was holding a Browning pistol.

"Tori!"

Victoria Jenkins (Girl #5) smiled. "Hey Erin. Work on your arm. That brick barely got any distance. If you threw it any less, I probably wouldn't have even found you".

Erin noticed that she was holding her brick, her, "weapon", in her hand. The sound of the brick thudding had sent her in the direction of the pitcher who had thrown it. She was lucky that Victoria was the only person that had actually shown up.

"Don't lose your weapon", Victoria said quickly. "You could put it to good use".

Erin stared awestruck. "Did everyone hook up? Are you alone? What's going on?"

"Calm down. Everyone's okay. Well, for now at least. I left the school first and met up with Amber near somewhere near the edge of the forest. She was out-of-her-mind. I think she almost forgot about all of us for a second. Adrienne sort of bumped into us when we were zigzagging back to regroup. Shyla was sort of wandering around when we found her; I think she thought we abandoned her".

"Amber's out-of-her-mind?"

Victoria sighed. "I don't know. It scared me too. If I had to bid on one person, she would definitely be the person to get us out of here. I'm not really a leader. Give or take, I wanted to take a side and stick with it. Have you decided on anything yet?

Erin was never the decision-maker of the group. She was basically a tagalong, only there to make the clique look more intimidating than it already was. Victoria, although an important part of the clique, had never had much time to do anything other than follow her own hectic schedule. In between volunteering at the Salvation Army, the cheerleading team, leader of the gardening club, taking charge of the neighborhood girl scouts, and the fashion club, every single tedious second of her life was booked. Still, if she was hurting on the inside, the stress never seemed to get to her. She had always been the voice of reason of their group, usually the first to recommend talking things out instead of acting them. In the end, Victoria, or Tori as they all knew her as, just wanted to have a good time and live high school to the fullest.

Well, at least she _had_.

"I don't know", Erin said. "I don't want to die anytime soon though. That's the only thing I'm actually sure about. What did they give you guys?"

"I got the only real weapon around here", Victoria said, gesturing to her pistol. "Amber got a sledgehammer, but you know. You can't carry one of those things unless you're Mr.T or in a really bad horror movie. She' s thinking about tossing it. Shyla got a butter knife and Adrienne got a toothbrush".

"_A toothbrush_?"

"I know. Everyone else was shocked too".

Erin shook her head. "How's everyone holding up?"

"Shyla's the only one really thinking. Believe it or not, Adrienne's been quiet. Amber just looks like she had no clue what to do next. I think she feels protective. Anyway, Shyla's got a migraine. I think she must have had some kind of reaction to that sleeping gas; she keeps moaning and biting down on her teeth. Still, she's the only one that's trying to find a way to get out of here".

"I'm not taking sides yet", Erin admitted. "I don't want to suspect anyone either thought. I mean sure, our class is bad, but there's no way anyone is bad enough to wipe us all out like that. I think everyone just wants to home and they'll all decide on the way that will keep them alive the longest. One person's leaving in the end, if that's anything to look forward too".

"I don't want to think about that", Victoria snapped. "I don't want anyone to die! We've all known eachother since we slept on our mats at naptime for Christ's sake! They can't do this to us! They have no right to!" Her face was sunken and worried. "I…I don't want to kill you Erin. I don' t want anyone else to either".

"Thanks".

It was awkward. Most of their experiences back in Spanish Rivers had been gossiping and crushing on boy bands. They had never had a serious conversation before, and if they did, it was over something trivial like a one-week boyfriend or something. It was disgusting to think of, but the Battle Royale may have been changing the two girls for the better.

"Anyway", Erin continued. "Nobody could be _that _bad, right?"

And with that, her question was answered for her.

In the nearby bustle of bushes in front of them, alongside a small clearing of leaves, pimply and muscular Eddie Dunnerman (Boy #5) was tearing apart something that resembled brown hamburger meat in his hands. His fingers were stained red, and in the moonlight, they almost seemed to glow as he laughed maniacally. The angular curves on them and awkward stems poking out like pasta instantly told Erin what they were: brains. Specifically, the brains of Kevin Hashburg who had been gunned down as an example for the rest of them.

"Let's go now, Erin! Everyone's just through the woods!"

"Good idea".

They started running. Behind them, Eddie just laughed and laughed.

* * *

Mae Yamamoto (_Girl #20_) hugged her knees as her rectangular glasses trembled on the bridge of her nose. She tried to stop her fingers from trembling, afraid that the slightest sound would send the entire world collapsing in on her.

The chilly autumn wind whistled, blowing her black and even hair past her face. Still trembling like a beaten puppy in a crowd of strangers, she checked her watch.

_1:20_

She gasped. Had a mere twenty minutes only passed as she sat in the treehouse? After leaving the school, she had found herself like she was in a dream. Everything had moved with a strange sense of hyper-reality; the feeling she got after stepping out of a movie theater.

Somehow, she had stumbled into the suburban area of the island where rich and expensive homes stared down at her like monsters. Hopping over fences, she settled on the one with the treehouse, tire swing attached, in the backyard. Once inside, after several minutes, she began to go through her bag to discover her weapon. Even as she looked at it now, it seemed like some sort of twisted joke: a bag of packing pellets. They were the kind you would find packaged in a cardboard box. On the other hand, there were likely very few decent weapons left when she was given her bag. The only students still in the school after her had been Nicole Zaun (Girl #21) and Meyerhold Zemeckis (Boy #21), the former who would have the deep disadvantage of leaving the school last.

Tears ran down her face, and Mae struggled to keep her sounds of whimpering hidden. On the miniature plastic desk in the corner of the treehouse, Crayola drawings of a family cluttered the table. In every single picture, the family was smiling, almost laughing at the situation…and Mae…

_Laughing at Mae…_

It was a pastime at her school, likely on the same level as graduation. For students like J.C Brooke and Amber Prescott, the day wouldn't be complete without making fun of the quiet and timid Asian girl that held her books up to her nose as she walked down the hallway. J.C Brooke, along with Zane Barrens and his gang, took great pleasure in knocking them out of her hand; this usually left several paper cuts on her nose like Salvador Dali's version of an obscure nosebleed.

With a sigh, she wondered what would happen to J.C Brooke and Amber Prescott during the competition. J.C would likely team up with Zane Barrens and attempt some kind of rebellion. Amber, on the other hand, was unpredictable. Mae imagined she would be in a group with her friends, but that was as far as her imagination could stretch it; she never imagined her classmates in this situation. As the sounds of crickets chirped outside, she wondered if J.C or Amber commit the unthinkable.

Murder.

Ever since transferring into Spanish Rivers in third grade, she hadn't made a single friend. Sometimes, Mae pictured the entire student body as a garden; some flowers bloomed and others simply didn't. Sadly, students like Logan Spruce, Terry Klingerman, Luke Graystone, and her hadn't bloomed; they had been over watered. It had all started in elementary school, shallow pranks, but it grew like a vine. She was picked on for the sole idea of being picked on; it was unavoidable and all she could do was pretend to ignore it.

"Mae".

She shrieked at the newfound voice. It hadn't come from outside the tree house; it had come from inside! _Somebody was in here! J.C! Amber! Everyone! They were all after her!_

"_Leave me alone!" _Mae shrieked.

She fumbled in her bag for the flashlight, finally managing to turn it on with her shaking hands. Under the desk, grinning like it had been painted on, was Jude Mercedes (Boy #11). His rich, blue, and collared shirt, almost like it had just been washed, clashed horribly with his fiery red hair.

"_No_!" Mae howled.

Jude clicked his tongue. He was planning to kill her; it had to be that way. He was just like Amber or J.C! In fact, he was just like all of them, only perhaps even worse. In every single class, Jude would simply sit in his chair and digest whatever the lesson was. His grades were stellar, but still, he didn't seem to care. He always seemed to be calculating...planning...waiting for something much bigger to happen.

"H-H-How long have you been here?" she whimpered.

Jude smirked. "I left the school before you, Mae. I watched you climb up the ladder".

Mae gripped the bag of packing pellets in her hand, instantly feeling like a complete idiot. Jude laughed hysterically; eyeing her bag of pellets like it was a punchline.

"They must really hate you".

"Did you get a gun, Jude?"

Even though Mae refused to believe rumors, being at the butt end of half of the ones that high school could spew out, she knew for a fact that half of the ones about Jude were completely factual. Apparently, he came from a family of con artists that schemed in the streets of New York every weekend to make money. Because of this, Jude was like a fast-talking hustler at a casino; Mae didn't no whether to be fearful of him or admire him.

"I didn't get a gun", Jude explained. "And I didn't get a knife. In fact, I got a broken glass bottle". He reached into the backpack beside him, pulling out the topside of a broken wine bottle. "Now, if I was going to attack you with it, I'm pretty sure you'd be sputtering blood in the middle of this treehouse already".

"_How long have you been here_?" Mae demanded.

"I told you. I got here first".

The crickets chirped like monsters outside, just like the monsters of the expensive homes, which were just like the monsters of Amber Prescott (_Girl #13_) and J.C Brooke (_Girl #1_). Soon, the monsters would all be closing in on her.

"You get bullied", Jude proclaimed.

Mae didn't answer. Seeing that her bag of packing pellets would be no help, she held out of her flashlight like it was a deadly blade. The evil light shined on Jude's handsome face.

"I don't think it's fair".

She didn't trust him at all. She backed into the corner of the tree house even farther, shaking even harder than she had been before.

"You're pretty smart. You were in that National Geography Bee last year, right?"

Mae nodded but didn't dare to speak. His heart was right there. He was just sitting back so casual; it would be _so_ easy. It wouldn't be her fault either; she was just defending herself after all.

"I almost made it in but J.C Brooke beat me into tenth place", Jude said. "I could have competed".

Suddenly, Mae found herself chuckling. "J.C cheats".

"Huh?'

"J.C cheated off me through the entire year. She has the same class periods as me, only one period ahead. I gave her test answers and homework every day in the hallway".

"That sucks".

Suddenly, Mae realized how easy it was to talk to Jude. Not only was he compassionate, but he was also completely understanding. Still not trusting him completely, she put down the flashlight softly on the wooden floor and flashed a smile with her braces at Jude.

"Well, you have to deal with it, right? After all, high school will be over soon, right?"

Jude smirked. "What makes you think we'll ever be going back?'

Mae felt slightly crestfallen. She had completely forgotten about the horrible fact of the matter; only one of them could survive in the end. She imagined all forty-two of them, Kevin Hashburg already being dead, all lying across the island like dolls left behind in a dollhouse. Biting her lip, she glanced up a Jude.

"What if I win?"

"Why won't you win?" Jude said, cocking an eyebrow. "You're smart and you can make it, right?'

"Yeah, but…"

Jude sighed. "But that doesn't matter. I mean, what matters in this screwed up country anymore? Did you know, Mae, that twenty years ago, this would be the equivalent of the Holocaust".

Slightly disturbed by Jude's words, Mae tightened her grip on the flashlight. A horrible picture in her mind, everyone on the island dead, flashed by her again but she buried it under her fear.

"Are you going to kill me?" Jude asked, skeptically.

Even though Mae had no clue what she was talking about, she found herself nodding. She realized that Jude had almost made her do the unthinkable; feel comfortable talking to him.

"Go ahead, Mae. Send those flashlights shards into my heart and see if I care".

Her family, her entire life, flashed before her eyes. She thought of her kittens, all newborns, at home playing in their little cardboard box. She thought of their innocent eyes and how she would never have a chance to see them again. The faces of her family, her parents and older sister, flashed by as well. She was never going to see any of them again. Trembling with the flashlight in her hand, she thought about how she would never see the kittens or her parents again; it was all because of Jude Mercedes.

"I'm going to kill you", Mae began. She knew she wasn't thinking anymore, but living was all that mattered now. "If you lay one finger on me I'll kill you! _What do you think I am_?"

Jude stared without any expression on his face. His blonde hair blew silently as the evil crickets chirped and whispered their rumors outside. His eyes were mysterious; Mae hated them.

"I think you're paranoid over what other people think of you", Jude explained. "And I think you have very low self-esteem and you let other people take advantage of you". He grinned. "But you're not really that bad".

Mae massaged the sweat beating down her neck, but as she touched her collar, her fingers instantly pulled away. Still, even though Jude hardly even had a decent weapon, she was trembling.

Jude sighed. "I think you should kill me".

She raised her eyebrow. "You don't want to live anymore?"

"You realize that Sadie and Prudence, my sisters, are both in this game, too, right? Even if we all managed to survive to the top three of the competition, we would still have to kill eachother. I mean, kill my sisters? That's screwed up; really screwed up".

"I don't trust you, Jude", Mae snapped.

"Why should you?'

"_You're going to trick me! You're going to trick me and stab me when I'm not looking!"_

Once again, Jude cocked an eyebrow with the maniacal grin on his face. "What's your plan to win this, Mae? Hide?"

"Shut up!"

"You don't have a plan at all, right? The typical reaction would probally be hiding until everyone's dead. I'll tell you; it's not a bad idea. I would just wait out here for people like J.C Brooke to kill everyone else and than win. And when it comes down to the two of us, we'd escape".

Mae instantly glanced up. "The two of us?"

Jude nodded. "Look, if you don't trust me, watch this". Still not breaking his comforting smile, Jude tossed the broken bottle of wine out the window. Mae heard it shatter on the pavement of the sidewalk outside.

"There. What am I going to do, now? Kill you with packing pellets?'

Glancing at Jude Mercedes, Mae found some level of sympathy. She refused to let her guard down, still fearing he was going to pull an Amber or J.C, but still, she admired him. She wasn't attracted to him at all, but his sense of confidence and cockiness was astonishing. Of course, without a weapon, he wouldn't be able to hurt her at all. If he so much as touched her, she could flee for her life; Jude Mercedes would be out of the picture.

"It's just really hard", Mae sighed. "To trust anyone…"

Jude reached out his hand. "I could teach you how".

For one moment, it was just them in the middle of the universe. The expensive homes and creatures were now angels instead of monsters, and Amber Prescott and J.C Brooke seemed like fictional characters in a storybook. She found herself smiling at Jude as he held out his hand to her.

"Are the rumors true that you're a con artist?'

He sighed softly. "Did Amber tell you that?"

Mae laughed and reluctantly put her hand forward. The two classmates stared at eachother. Mae could almost see the future now; they would find a way to escape together, leave the country to somewhere isolated from the horror of the real world, and live there forever. Struggling to push the idea of killing the other thirty-nine students that weren't in the tree house, she squeezed Jude's hand.

"Can you do me a favor, Mae?" Jude asked.

Mae nodded, knowing his tricks.

"Leave the tree house first and make sure nobody watched us; I'll get my flashlight over there on the table in the corner and lead the way".

Mae smirked, but she prayed that Jude wouldn't see it. It was a sneaky trick; he likely had someone waiting right outside to ambush her the moment her sneakers stepped off the rope ladder. She folded her arms in her lap.

"Why don't I get your flashlight and you'll go watch for cover".

For one second, Jude seemed to hesitate. Than, staring deeply at Mae, he nodded.

However, the smile was still plastered onto his face like a thick stamp.

"Okay. We'll have it your way. I'll wait until you're ready to go before I leave".

Without hesitating, Mae stood up triumphantly from the left corner of the treehouse and happily began to walk over to the opposite. Due to the fact that she had been hiding in the corner the entire time, she hadn't been in the other corner of the treehouse; she hadn't even noticed there was even a table to place a flashlight there. When she got there, however, it turned out she was right; there was no flashlight there at all. There wasn't even a table or stool to place it on.

Slightly worried, Mae stepped back. "Jude?"

_Beep! Beep! Beep!_

Mae's collar had suddenly started beeping and flashing red light. She nearly felt herself jump out of her skin as she glanced down. All of the lights flashed up like a funhouse, suddenly causing her neck to vibrate. Horrified, she spun around to Jude.

"_My collar!"_

Jude was holding up the map of the island in her face. His smug grin, before confidant and understanding, now told a completely different story. His eyes, which seconds ago were defeated, were now cold and desolate like Mae always thought they were. His index finger was pointing to one section on the map (B5). It was the area where most of the suburbs were; where they were. It was the area directly behind the school. However, one section of one of the backyards, just one insignificant piece of it, cut into the Danger Zone that had become the school. In fact, it was so small that Mae could barely even see it with her glasses.

However, she could still see exactly what had happened; Jude had tricked her into walking into the opposite corner of the treehouse.

The small strip of the backyard that was in the school's Danger Zone.

"Game over, Mae".

Before Mae had another thought to spare for Jude or the map, her thoughts ended. The metallic collar exploded in a flash of light, ripping apart her throat and splattering out blood that dripped down to her blouse. Her terrified eyes, the one sign of life, suddenly became still and desolate like Jude's. The last thought in her mind, strangely enough, was her kittens playing in their cardboard box. Finally not trembling in fear anymore, Mae Yamamoto (Girl #20), the quiet Asian girl who simply wanted to fit in, fell dead to the floor of the treehouse.

Jude Mercedes (Boy #11) surveyed the scene with a thoughtful expression of his face. The ear-splitting boom of the collar exploding still echoed in his ears as he stood up with his backpack in tow. Without laying a hand on her, Jude Mercedes had killed Mae Yamamoto. Careful to not walk into the section of the treehouse where Mae had met her demise, he casually began to climb down the rope ladder. Then, still smiling at Mae's lifeless body, he spoke:

"For somebody in a Geography Bee, you aren't very good at reading maps".

* * *

**Eliminated**

**(Boy #6) Hashburg, Kevin**

**(Girl #20) Yamamoto, Mae**

* * *

**40 Students Remaining**


	4. Day 1: Hour 2: 40 Students Remaining

There were so many reasons why somebody like Sadie would find herself with hardly any bids riding on her. It could have been the fact that her weak and poor figure wasn't one of a survivalist, it could have been because she wasn't very good at taking care of herself, or it could have been that the government bigwigs behind the whole thing tended to lean more towards the crazed and sadistic lunatics.

Or it could have been the fact that she was anorexic.

Sadie Mercedes (Girl #9) swatted low branches with her samurai sword, using all of her power to bring the blade above her shoulders. By medical definition, it was _restrictive anorexia nervosa_. Although the name sounded complicated, it really wasn't: starve, puke, and lose all the meat on your bones and you were an expert at it. Past the fact there was literally no muscle on her, Sadie wasn't necessarily bad looking at all. Unfortunately, without anything but skin and bone on her face, that decent bone structure of hers stood out like a skeleton. Unlike most people, who required anorexia through low self-esteem and poor self-image, Sadie knew that she easily had the most embarrassing and pathetic tale in the book: she had literally starved herself to become popular.

It had all started sometime during middle school. After watching too many high school sitcoms and basically being naïve, Sadie's idea of being a teenager was you needed to be noticed. That wasn't hard at all. Make friends, get people to know you, talk a lot, and you were pretty much golden. It wasn't that Sadie was selfish, stuck-up, or vain at all; she just had an annoying and uncanny obsession with being the center of attention. Usually, it tended to get the best of her.

The cheerleading team. That was a sure-fire way to fit in. After all, before the eating disorder had kicked in, she had been a perfectly healthy if somewhat thin girl that had the perfect body for a victory pyramid. They had seemed to like her enough during practice, even to the point of almost being her friend, but still, they had seemed to keep their distance from her. It was almost like they thought she was contagious. At first, Sadie was confused. Why would this clique of preppy and cheerful girls, all led by Amber Prescott, treat her like that? They were all brats, but she hadn't even done anything to them yet. When she really thought about it, it was simple.

Her last name was Mercedes.

Jude was a freak and Prudence was a bodybuilder dyke who could have snapped everyone's neck is she wanted to, but still, Sadie loved them both. They had all come into the world together as triplets on the same god damned day, and even if their home life had never been pleasant, they were all strong people. Unfortunately, along with being strong, they were all different. If you were different in Spanish Rivers High, or any high school for that matter, you were shunned in a second. It was all really simple in the end: if you were a Mercedes triplet, you were a freak of nature, and physcopath, and a killing spree waiting to happen.

In a desperate attempt to impress Amber and her friends, Sadie had realized that she had to be careful what she ate. After all, why would somebody perfect like Amber want a fat pig on her cheerleading squad? Sadie, already fairly thin, had slowly stopped eating altogether in an effort to break from her family name and impress the popular girls. Breakfast went away first, and soon after, lunch was reduced to perhaps a few bites of a dry salad before being thrown in the trashcan. Dinner was usually skipped altogether.

And in the end, they hadn't noticed her at all.

"_Fine_", Sadie thought. "_Even if something's my fault, you can all just leave me the hell alone_".

Swatting another branch, the scarecrow of a person that Sadie had become collapsed to the ground, exhausted. Her heart and mind were racing. It wasn't like she had many allies to begin with for something like this. Prudence would definitely help her, the two of them being close since childhood, but she was also very isolated and kept to herself. If Sadie even made eye contact with her, she would run away, or, in the dark pits of Sadie's mind, do other things that were too horrible to think of. And Jude. As much as she had grown to love her brother, no matter how long he would simply stare into space with his cold eyes, he was easily the physcopath of their grade. They were related, sure, flesh and blood and out into this hellhole of a world on the same day, but to somebody unpredictable like Jude, maybe family was something that just didn't make sense. There really wasn't anything behind those eyes.

"_I'll snap like a twig_", she thought. "_Oh God, I'll just snap like a twig!_ _They'll just break me like a skinny little stick if they get the chance"._

Were they really all out to get her, or was she just being paranoid? Being the ninth person to leave the school, she had still left when a fairly large amount of the class was still at the twisted hands of Reynold Burke. Leaving directly after Peter, who had vanished without a trace after leaving the school, Sadie had done the only thing reasonable: run for her life. And she would keep running too. She would run, and run, and run until her heart gave out. She would find her siblings, because in the end, if you just kept running, nobody could catch you.

Sadie stared at the samurai sword clutched in her bony arms. It was a decent weapon, but the odds were somebody out there probably had a high-powered machine gun that would rip through half of the class like tissue paper. She had heard the ear-splitting metal boom that had echoed about fifteen minutes ago, and to somebody who had grown up in suburbia, it was impossible to tell if it was a gunshot or something else. She hoped it was a gunshot.

"Sadie?"

The moment she heard the voice of another human being, every desire she had to stay alive kicked in. Feeling her heart racing, she swung the sword around in a hiss, piercing the air. There was a tear of fabric, followed by a swift cutting sound and a female scream. Something large and metal clattered, but still, Sadie was too frightened too look. She swung the sword wildly in the air, just hoping her attacker would either be frightened away or at least give her mercy.

"Sadie!" the voice screamed, more recognizable this time. "Stop_! It's_ _Nicole_! _Stop swinging that thing, damn it!"_

Opening her eyes, Sadie felt a wave of relief to see Nicole Zaun (Girl #21) knocked off her feet with a look of pure panic in her eyes. Petite, baby-faced, and brunette, Nicole was an average-girl at the best that had never really caused any of the guys to have much thought in her. If there was anything notable about her it was the fact that she had a half-decent shot at becoming valedictorian. If it wasn't that, it was the half-dozen earrings and necklaces she would wear. It was almost like knick-knack and gift shops had started to market human beings. Along with her bottle-cork earrings and pierced lip, she also wore a rabbit's foot around her neck. Despite the fact that they had been friends nearly since kindergarten, it still didn't make much sense; especially considering the fact that Nicole was quite vocal when it came to animal's rights.

Nicole cringed as she lay on her back. Her jeans had been frayed and sliced, and two shallow bloody cuts were on each leg. They weren't deep, but still, it was more than a reason to be guilty. After all, she had just sliced the legs of her best friend with a samurai sword after being paranoid about her classmates killing her.

"Oh my god! Are you okay?"

Nicole nodded. "Yeah, It'll hurt like hell to walk though. I'll manage".

"I didn't mean anything! I'm so sorry! It's the game, you know? They always say that the worst part of the whole thing is the moment you leave the school and-

"It's fine", Nicole cut in shortly. "Besides, these scars will look pretty badass when they heal anyway".

Sadie grinned the first time since the game started. "We're in a game of life and death, and you're worrying about coming out with badass-looking scars to show off to everyone?'

"Somebody gets out of this. Give it a one out of forty-two chance, and I have a pretty good shot at making it out of here. In fact, considering the odds if I just hide and run for my life, I might come out lucky".

Sadie grimaced. "Forty-one. Kevin's gone".

"That was really messed up back there. Do you know why they killed him? He couldn't play the game, he never would have been able to even get out of the classroom nontheless fight, so they decided to use his life as an example. A life isn't something you can make an example out of. Even somebody like Kevin, even if he wasn't destined for anything great, deserved a lot better than that. Anyway, I was sitting behind him. The back of his head just kind of just opened up and that was it".

As horrible as the death-game was, Sadie found herself getting a boost of self-confidence from that her friend's vocal, diplomatic, and optimistic attitude hadn't been broken at all. The same Nicole that had been abducted by the government was the same Nicole that had entered the program. Nothing seemed to be able to change her; not even the prospect of death.

"So you think we'll last?" Sadie asked.

"Who knows?" Nicole said with a shrug. "This whole thing is really just trivial. It's like herding animals into a cage to watch them tear eachother part. The animals don't know any better so they tear all of the weaker ones apart. A life's worth a hell of a lot more than any of the guys in that school think. Especially a kid's life".

Sadie stared. "Where do we rank up on the survival chart?'

"Huh?"

"Well, you know. You said the stronger animals tear the weaker ones apart. Where do we fit in there? What animals do we compare to?"

Suddenly, Nicole paused. Glancing over her shoulder, Sadie noticed the metal clattering had been made from the shovel that had fell from Nicole's arms when she had accidentally sliced her shins. It was almost a joke of a weapon; get out and dig your own grave while there's still time left. Her friend's face was studious and serious, the way it was when she was ready to speak her opinion for some current event issue in their history class or just offer advice. Oddly enough, although she would talk about the things she believed in all the time, she had never seemed to talk about the program once. Maybe it scared her.

"We're mice, Sadie", Nicole sighed "Weak mice who huge-ass lions are going to rip to shreds the moment they find us! I'm not smart, Sadie! I might get into Honor Roll and I could be in the newspaper for blasting off to the moon for god's sake, but I'm not smart! I just can't last in something like this! I don't have any god damned idea _what to do_!" She paused. "We're both going to die, aren't we?"

Sadie eyed the shovel with a grimace. "Until then, we're practically digging our own graves".

* * *

Besides reality television, family sitcoms, and music censorship, the one thing that Zane Barrens (Boy #1) detested above everything else was the government.

As he would tell his classmates and everyone that cared to listen, he had seen the downfall of the country coming when the whole mess had began. It was a interesting concept to say the least: an act of population and delinquency control that not only kept authority high and mighty, but also separated the country into thinking there was no hope but to give in. Battle Royale; the so-called, "biggest advancement of the century". No matter how many big words they tried to use, it was still a massacre. Today, and for the next three days, it was a massacre that all forty-two of them had been thrown into.

Zane spit onto the mossy ground. Lugging his backpack over his shoulder as he walked along the hills, he tightened the grip on his AWG Sniper Rifle. It seemed like a load of luck being given something like _that_ in the weapon lottery, but in the end, it was useless unless for long-range combat; and in a Battle Royale, when was long-range combat ever used?

Craning his neck, he grimaced as he glanced over at his, "friends". They were all either staring at the ground, frightened out of their wits, and if they weren't, they were staring deftly at their leader, almost like they expected something. When he really thought about it, it made sense. He was Zane Barrens. Leader. Delinquent. Biggest hater of authority in their class. He would definitely have a plan for what to do in the program, wouldn't he?

Unfortunately, it was just the opposite

He was clueless. He just hoped they wouldn't realized that he had accidentally lead them in complete circles. The moment they realized that the person that they all assumed as calm and collected had no clue what to do, the whole group would simply collapse in a frenzy.

"I'm tired, Zane!"

He did his best not to scowl at J.C Brooke (Girl #1), his girlfriend, best friend, and annoyance since the day they had met, who was now shambling along beside him. Her red and bushy hair, naturally blonde under all of her excessive hair dye, was cluttered with twigs and dirt. Her eyes were bloodshot, and strangely enough for somebody who always complained and used other people, she didn't seem to be very fazed by the program at all. In fact, she was treating the whole thing like it was just a typical day back in Spanish Rivers. Despite her bitter personality, the kind that would get a book full of words to describe her from their classmates, Zane had become fairly attached to his girlfriend. Even if she felt the same way though, she would never show it. In between harassing the unpopular girls and beating up on nerds, J.C was easily one of the toughest girls in their school. Now that she was carrying a .21 Bobcat Pistol, she looked even tougher.

Zane forced a sarcastic smile. "It's fine, J.C. The moment we find some wood, we'll build a chariot and carry you around on our backs. Don't worry, you're safe with us".

She giggled. "Promise?"

"Promise".

Needing a self-esteem booster, he reached over to hook his arm over her shoulder and kiss her. Halfway there though, she ended up scowling in annoyance and retreating to the back of the group with her arms folded. The other three were all walking in a horizontal line, and although none had really said much since the game started, they were easily the three that Zane was the most concerned about. Skylar Tierren (Boy #17) was walking alongside Jesse Morgan (Girl #10), his on-and-off girlfriend. Easily the bystanders of the group, they never really took part in the vandalism and destruction and really spent more time with eachother; in the end, one basically couldn't function without the other. Ever since they had left the school though, they had been talking…whispering..._plotting?_

The last in line was both the least important and strangest of the entire gang: Rory North (Boy #13). Besides whistling softly to himself and smelling like the cigarettes that he smoked all night in his room, he never really contributed much to any discussion at all. Even when you attempted to talk to him, the most he would give were short and solid one-word answers.

"Hey Zane, didn't we pass that rock before?" Skylar asked.

He was smirking. He had obviously caught onto the idea that their leader had no clue what the hell he was doing. Under his blonde and scraggly skater hair, that face was almost begging to be knocked in by a fist.

Zane glared. "Why don't you come up with a plan then, Skylar?"

"Well, maybe I should. You obviously have no clue what the hell you're doing. I swear, this is probably the third time that we past this spot! We've been wandering in circles!"

"What if I _know_ that I don't have any clue what I'm doing, Skylar? What if I've just been trying to come up with something while pretending we're all going to get out of here and live happily ever after? This is the program! You either live, or, most likely, you die. The odds are, every single one of us is coming back home in pieces. I'll admit it! I have no clue what I'm doing. Now, what's your brilliant plan?"

"I think someone else should lead", Skylar retorted. "Someone who knows what they're doing".

"Skylar, you threw out your weapon because you weren't strong enough to carry it, and now you're saying that you should lead the group? It was a goddamned Daewoo, too! What a waste!"

Skylar scowled. "Did I say that I wanted to lead the group, Zane? No, I didn't. In fact, I think that Jesse should lead".

Suddenly, every single eye, either surprised or triumphant, turned to Jesse. Class treasurer and leader of the formally undefeated girl's volleyball team, she was the perfect candidate to lead the group to salvation. Still, she didn't seem to agree with this. Her face was shocked, almost like she had never heard her name spoken before.

"Me?"

"Yeah, you. Unlike some people, you care about everyone here and wouldn't sell them out just to blow up the school. Think about it: if he had the chance, he would strap bombs on each of us and send us running towards the soldiers just so he could make a point. The only thing he cares about are his own opinions!"

Zane was lost for words. Out of all the members of the group that could have stood up to him, it was Skylar. Skylar, who hadn't protested when Zane would painfully smack him across the face for the hell of it. Skylar, who refused to take part anytime they went down to the school parking lot to spray graffiti. This was Skylar Tierren. What the hell had gotten into him since the game started?

"Skylar, I-

"Shut up, Zane! I've made up my mind! There's no way I'm letting myself die out like a coward in this game! If I have to go down, it's not going to be without a fight. Jesse is a hell of a better fighter than you!"

"Jesse got a life preserver!" Zane roared. "She's useless!"

"_Don't call my girlfriend useless_!"

"Everyone shut up!"

Immeadidly, everyone followed Jesse's orders as her furious voice entered the argument. Unlike everyone there, she was the sole one that seemed to have a hope of making a future for herself. In the end, none of them were really destined for any greatness in the real world. Zane would let his anger get the best of him and either commit suicide or die alone, J.C would become a fat airline stewardess after her beauty faded, Rory would be homeless, and Skylar would be trapped in a cubicle filing papers. Jesse could be anywhere she wanted though. Well, she _could_ have been anywhere she wanted. Although being, "transferred", to Bus D had been horribly unlucky for all of them, it had been especially rough for her.

"Look", Jesse began. "I don't think anybody should bite at eachother just because we don't know what's going on or what our next step is. Sure, somebody needs to lead us and come up with something, but until then, we work together. There's tons of smart kids on this island. Remember how Mae was almost televised on that spelling bee?"

J.C snorted. "We're not letting that Mae Yamamoto anywhere near us".

"Y'know what J.C?" Jesse snapped. "This is life or death. Maybe you should put all of your petty concerns and rivalries behind you so you can get out of this alive. I'm tired of you judging people, and that goes from you too Zane. Remember how you treated Mitch this morning?"

Zane scowled. "What the hell's your point?"

"My point is that the only reason you bully everyone is that they all just have something that you wish you had!"

"What?"

"_Friends_!"

Jesse's words brought hushed silence over the time group. Turning pale, even she looked shocked at the words that had just come out of her mouth. Zane grimaced. Although he would refuse to call any of them close to his heart, she had easily hit a sore spot. In the end, like it or not, they were all banded together because they really had nobody else to hang out with. The words had been harsh, but still, Zane Barrens knew he wasn't the person that would ball up like a little pussy and be talked down by somebody weaker, and a girl for Christ's sake! It was time to retaliate.

Jesse stared dumbfounded. "Zane…I…

"You guys aren't getting off", Zane's mind spit out of his mouth. "You can keep thinking that you will, but in the end, you're all like dogs chasing mechanical rabbits. You're never going to catch the rabbit. You're never getting out of here all together. Even if you come up with a plan, you're screwed. You all turned to me because you can't think for yourselves!"

"It's not like that!" Skylar yelled. "It's just, well, you've always been the one saying how you want to tear up the government. I thought you would dream about something like this!"

"This isn't a dream! This is a nightmare! I have no clue what to do and neither do any of you!"

"You could have just told us that in the beginning!" Skylar snapped. "We could've stayed at the school and rallied up enough people to start a riot or something".

"Don't be stupid!" Zane said. "If we started anything, they'd blow our heads off for the hell of it. There's no hope. We're all going to die. Have a nice day".

Another hushed silence fell over the group. In the back of the group like always, Rory hummed a rock beat softly, refusing to participate in anything that involved speaking. J.C, either too stupid or stubborn to understand what was going on, was glaring at Zane like she expected him to jump up and take bullets for her. Jesse and Skylar stood side-by-side, both amazed at what had just happened.

"The gang is dead", Zane concluded. "Just stay here until I come back. We're spending the night here. I'm getting firewood. J.C and Rory, find something to eat besides bread rolls that taste like pencil shavings! Skylar and Jesse, stay here and pretend you're doing something useful!"

"Why do I have to get firewood", J.C whined. "Jesse can-

"_GO_!"

Whimpering, she dashed off into the woods beside the bay of mossy rocks. Shoving the hood of his sweatshirt over his greasy and hairy head, Rory quickly followed without any sign of protest or caring. For a second, Zane considered staying behind to take another glance at Skylar and Jesse, but in the end, they definitely weren't worth it at all. Taking a deep breath, he started to walk.

He liked to destroy things. Even if it was just causing an argument, the idea of being the ringleader behind something was a great feeling. If there was somebody who didn't approve of his antics though, it was easily his father. Conservative and loud with a deep respect for the government, it was a wonder how Zane had turned out the way he was after growing up in a house where the Republic of Greater East Asia arriving had the been the highpoint of the century. Maybe it was just his need to find his place in the screwed up country. Either that, or he just wanted to stand out.

They had all turned to him in their moment of defeat, knowing that their, "leader", now finally had his chance to show the government what they had coming. Although he had protested from time to time back in Spanish Rivers, in the end, he really wasn't suited for much other than talking. All say and no do. That was the way to go. He just wasn't cut out for something like this, even if it was something his classmates thought he probably fantasized about.

He glanced around. Back in the clearing of mossy rocks, they were sitting on a termite-eaten log. Jesse had a sympathetic and caring look on her face, but past that, she looked terrified. She was talking reasonably to Skylar, almost trying to convince him of something, but he looked anything but motivated about it. She was pointing at the burlap sack at their feet which, as Rory had proclaimed earlier, had contained his weapon. It now occurred to Zane that he hadn't even seen what Rory's weapon was. They were planning against rebelling against him. It had to be that way. How low could you sink when the people that were supposed to keep you company were plotting against you?

_Pretty low._

Tightening his grip on the sniper rifle, Zane Barrens (Boy #1) spit on the ground again and started to look for firewood.

* * *

Mitch Kelley (Boy #10) wasn't sure exactly how far he had run.

It couldn't have been more than two hours, and amazingly enough, he knew he still had enough strength to run even more. Although he was easily unathletic, and although his physical stamina was weak, his desire to live outshadowed everything. After all, it wasn't like he had many alliances in the competition to begin with. There was Adam and Peter, and anything beyond that was a guaranteed risk. Mitch had decided it was a horrible idea to trust anyone; after all, whenever you turned your head, there was a good chance they wouldn't waste a decent opportunity to stab you right in the back. Both literally and figuratively.

Back in school, Mitch had basically gone unnoticed. He was the editor of the school newspaper, a job that he took in stride when no upperclassmen wanted it, he was a borderline student when it came to academics, and as for athletics, there really wasn't much to say. If there was one thing somewhat important to say about him though, it was his role as the secretary of the School Union Of Film Appreciation and Creativity, or to put it short, "video club". Filming videos, capturing a moment on film, had been a way of occupying his time more than a hobby, and in the end, it had really just been for the sake of doing something. No one noticed him. It was probably good to keep it that way too.

"Please…" Mitch gasped out-of-breathe. "S-S-S-Stop!"

For somebody so scrawny, even scrawnier than Mitch himself, Luke Graystone (Boy #5) was surprisingly quick. Even though he looked exhausted, he hadn't broken his run since he started. If he didn't catch him, there was a good chance Luke would be running until the end of time, or at least until their collars began counting down. After sprinting through the woods, circling through a field, and finally hopping over a rusty fence where Luke had seemed to have cut his leg, Mitch had been shocked to see that they had actually reached pavement. The street that they had dashed onto was crudely labeled, "Main Street", with a tacky street sign. Aside from a post office, there was a dry cleaning, a general store, a police station, and besides that, Cuna Cielo was obviously not a very thrilling place to live.

In the back of his mind, Mitch sized up the other competitors. Every year, there were general stereotypes in the Battle Royale. There were the smart ones who would attempt to escape, the red shirts that died for the sake of dying, the few that offed themselves, and finally, and most respected by the nation, the ones that chose to play the game. Still, every year, every stereotype followed the same fate. The smart ones were usually either eliminated for breaking the rules or slaughtered before putting their plan into action, the red shirts were picked off like flies, the ones that offed themselves were self-explanatory, and the lone killer usually left with a card signed by the Great Dictator. After that, aside from being nearly deranged for the rest of your life, you were famous.

Peter was definitely one of the smart ones. He would plan something big, and with just enough luck, it would probably work. Then again, the smart ones never made it, but this was _Peter, for god's sake._ The red shirts were predictable. _Preston. J.C. Demi. Maybe Mitch himself? _The ones that would off themselves was just cruel to pick out, but there were definitely people in the class with the balls to do it. And the killers. Judging which one of your classmates would kill the others was sick and twisted. Unfortunately, Mitch had found that his mind had picked names; cocky Jude, angry Zane, and, "I wanna' die people", Darren were all high on the list.

"Stop! Leave me alone!"

Mitch blinked. Was he still running? His heart was pounding, and for just a second, he was sure he had zoned out. Had Luke just yelled at him? Glancing forward, he realized he was now halfway down Main Street with Luke's back still exposed in front of him. His heart was probably pounding even harder then Mitch's. He wondered when the ponytailed outcast of Spanish Rivers High School would just give up and collapse.

And that was when it happened.

Suddenly, in the middle of his run, Luke made a quick diversion to the left to throw Mitch off. However, he ended up stumbling over his own feet and sliding to the ground in a hopeless mess. Seeing the only chance he would probably have to retrieve his only way of defending himself, Mitch forced all of his energy forward, and unsurprisingly, he shut down. With his heart pounding like a jackhammer, he collapsed to the ground beside Luke who was screaming untranslatable gibberish.

"_Stopitstopitstopitstopitstopitstopit_...", Luke roared. "I'm sorry! I'm so sorry! I, I didn't know any better. I'm sorry! Don't come anywhere near me! I have a taser, man! _I'll kill you_! Just don't hurt me! Please!"

He was hysterical. Just a short hour in the game had nearly ripped his mind apart. As much as he was angry at him, past experiences had taught Mitch that you weren't going to get anywhere with someone if you made them even more frightened than they already were. Gritting his teeth and barely able to talk, Mitch simply sighed.

"I'm not going to hurt you, Luke".

Luke immeadidly stopped sweating. "For real?"

"I should, but I'm definitely not going to. I've made up my mind about this whole thing. There's no way I'm playing this if my life depended on it".

"Your life does depend on it".

Scowling and annoyed, he was forced to pick the only sane thing that there seemed left to say. Knowing it was incredibly awkward trying to be friendly to somebody who had just left him with no chance of survival, Mitch put out his hand.

"I'm Mitch".

Luke eyed the hand but didn't shake it. "Lucas Graystone".

Although they both knew eachother's names, considering how they had never said a word to eachother, it only seemed natural to introduce themselves.

"Is your leg okay?"

Luke cringed as he glanced down at his bloody knee. "I scraped it pretty bad when you chased me over that fence back there. I banged my teeth really hard into it when I landed. I'll manage for awhile though; it's just bruised up. I don't think you really got under the skin that much".

"I guess you didn't get a good weapon".

Luke stared. "Huh?"

"Well, you did try to steal mine. What did you get that could be that terrible? Just to tell you, a taser definitely doesn't give you a good chance at survival".

"You promise you won't laugh?"

"Even if I did, you probably shouldn't care. If we're going to die, we might as well die laughing".

Rolling his eyes, Luke quickly dug into his knapsack and retrieved something large and bulky. Still not making eye contact, he sighed and tossed it into Mitch's lap.

"A _Bible_?"

"He who lives by the sword dies by the sword", Luke quoted. "Yeah, it's a Bible. It sucks, but you have to make do with what you get, I guess".

"You call viciously attacking me after waiting to see me leave the school, robbing my weapon, and taking off like a wimp making do with what you have?"

Luke glared. "I get scared sometimes, okay?"

It now occured to Mitch that he had almost never heard Luke speak before. He rarely showed up to class, and when he did, he slipped unnoticed under everyone's radar and simply sat down in the back. You were lucky to see him, nontheless speak to him. Now that he had spoken, Mitch saw that his voice was a hoarse like a freight train stopping. It just didn't suit somebody skinny with a blonde ponytail at all. Keeping with the beachboy image that had caused thousands of cruel rumours about him, he was wearing a shark tooth around his neck like a good luck charm.

"So you're not mad at me?'

Mitch gritted his teeth. "No, Luke, I _am_ mad at you. Very, very mad. In fact, for the rest of the game, I never want to see you again until I have to. I just want to run off alone so I can think. I'll find Adam..and Peter..."

"I guess you don't forgive people that easily. Anyway, if it's any help, Adam left the school after both of us. Spencers, right? Peter was the boy to leave the school right before you, so if anything helps, he couldn't have run off that far. It's better to make alliances with the people that you find and wait to join up with others".

"I'm finding Adam, Luke. That's final. You're not coming with me".

If Luke was frightened at all, he didn't show it. Mumbling something under his breathe, he started to gather up his things into his backpack with a hard expression on his face. Quickly slipping the Bible into his knapsack, he gave Mitch a weak smile and nudged the taser against his knee.

"Take it back. I'll just steal something from someone el-

_THUD!_

A gunshot.

Despite being the first gunshot of the game, the rest of the island was disturbingly eerie and quiet. Both Mitch and Luke were silent as they sat in the middle of Main Street. It wouldn't have been that frightening if it wasn't for the fact that the gunshot had come from several feet away from both of them. Almost robotically, the two boys both turned their heads to the police station that was looming just behind them.

"Jesus..." Luke muttered.

"Let's get the hell out of here", Mitch said quickly.

Suddenly, after a low shuffling sound of footsteps, a dark figure emerged from the swaying western-style doors. Twirling around in a spasmodic dance with her frizzy hair, her hands clawed the air like they were trying to reach for a ladder. Tripping on her own sneakers, the girl fell limply off the porch of the police station. She hit the ground roughly, landing in a rumpled heap with her sweatshirt ragged and dusty.

"Ima' go...", the girl muttered. "Ima' go...

It didn't take half a second for Mitch to register who it was. With the frizzy hair, the kind that looked like an electrocuted poodle, and general appearence as a gigantic mess, the girl was the same person that had shown him her sliced and diced arm just the morning. It was the same girl that had been constantly picked on for being different. It was also the same girl who had dashed out of the Spanish Rivers High parking lot, been attacked by soldiers against her will, and sent to the island with the rest of them.

Terry Klingerman.

"I'll go inside and check!" Luke said quickly. "Oh god!"

As Luke raced away into the police station, Mitch quickly crawled over to the girl. Her face was pretty, despite the fact that acne that could easily be washed away with soap covered her entire face. Just looking at her almost made you feel hopeless. Reaching out his hand to her hair, he looked for a gun wound, anything that would show how she had ended up like this, but he couldn't find anything. However, when he finally made his way to her wrists, something instantly caught his eye. A pool of blood had formed at her jeans, seeping from her wrists. If she had slit her wrists though, why the hell had they heard a gunshot?

Suddenly, Luke rushed back outside the station, breathing hard with his face red.

"There's a bullet hole in the wall in there!" Luke said frantically. "She...She must have fired the bullet by accident and slit her wrists when it missed! Jesus, she must have been desperate to get out of here!"

"Where'd she get the gun!"

"I don't know! Maybe she found it under the desk or something! I checked everywhere though. If it's there, she hid it well before she finished herself off".

"But she's still alive", Mitch ranted. "She's breathing! We have to help her!"

Suddenly, the first time he had ever seen him, Luke laughed. "_We_?"

And with that, Luke Graystone (Boy #5) took off down Main Street with his backpack swung over his shoulder. He was limping hard, but somehow, his own cowardness to leave Mitch with the dying corpse of a classmate had overshadowed anything else he could have been feeling. Mitch had been abandoned. _Well, good, that's why I didn't trust you anyway. Besides, what happens when you get close to people? They all just run away. Every time._

Shaking the thought out of his head, Mitch's mind raced as he glanced at Terry Klingerman (Girl #6). Her pulse was beating quickly, but that wasn't good at all; it was a sign of losing blood. Tucked under her arm, hardly visible in the dark moonlight, there was a wooden box that was half-open. Not wasting a second, Mitch quickly swung it open and was met by something he never expected to see as a weapon: a sowing kit. One of the needles was stained dark red, explaining how Terry had attempted to end her life.

Abruptly, he was overcome with a horrible, horrible idea.

The most he'd ever studied biology was dissecting frogs in biology class. Their anatomy was supposedly similar to a human's, but still, how could he compare a life of a classmate to a goddamned toad? Her veins definitely hadn't been slit; it had just been her flesh. If he stitched the skin and stopped the blood flow it would become infected from the sloppy job, it would cause it to become swollen, it would probably hurt like hell when she woke up, but most of all, it would keep her alive. If she had been feeling how Mitch was feeling before she had slit her wrists, it was more than enough of a reason to save her.

Picking up a needle and quickly sticking a thread through from the spool, Mitch Kelley (Boy #10) started the first stitch. The sun wasn't going to rise for a very long time.

* * *

**No Students Eliminated**

* * *

**40 Students Remaining**


	5. Day 1: Hour 3: 40 Students Remaining

Quite far from Main Street where Mitch was performing surgery on Terry Klingerman, Winston Van Buren (Boy #19) walked through the junkyard, D7, with a switchblade in his shaking hand. His African-American skin was invisible in the pitch-black of three-o-clock in the morning and he could hardly see his hand in front of his face, or more importantly, a glimpse of the explosive collar fastened around his neck. Anyway, it didn't matter; he could have painted his hands with fluorescent paint and he would still have to squint to see something. The night was dark as hell.

After rushing outside, leaving only five students inside, he had worked up a little courage when he found the switchblade in his knapsack. In the end though, really didn't change anything. The way he had been brought up had made him too sentimental and forgiving to finish off anyone. He had attempted to hide in a treehouse in a backyard near the school, feeling safe by how clean and inviting the house looked, but discovered it was occupied by bookworm Mae, or at least what was left of her. Although it was far too dark to see the blood, he knew for a fact that her head hadn't been there anymore. The game was well underway.

"_Two down_", Winston thought." _Thirty-nine to go_".

_Was that right?_ Most of the time, he wasn't good with his math. It wasn't that he was necessarily dumb or anything, but for the most part, he just couldn't see patterns that well. It was the inability that had caused him to become held back for a year, and even after that, tested for any type of learning disability. Straight out, Winston wasn't stupid at all. After all, who needed book smarts and numbers when you had pure logic to see how the world worked? He was good at thinking outside the box, he was pretty damn inventive too, but now that he had been thrown into an all-out brawl, he tried to think of a way to put those skills to a good use.

Several cars, mostly pick-up trucks, scattered the junkyard like lost souls. Winston knew a lot about being lost, considering he had practically felt lost his entire life. Due to the fact that he had been held back a year because of his grades, his other classmates were technically a year younger than he was. Even though it was only a mere year, Winston considered the majority of his classmates immature; especially that Amber chick and her friends. The one that he somewhat liked was Peter, the cross-dresser who was mature for a freshman. Due to their age difference, however, he had never bothered to be friends with any of his classmates. In fact, even though he wasn't exactly unpopular, he knew his classmates gossiped about him. Sensing weakness, the high cliques had followed the pecking order of high school and given him the nickname of, "Moose", for being big, dark, and well, stupid. He hated them for it.

"_How many bets are you all putting on me_?" he thought. "_Thousands? Millions? Good luck. Big old Winston's going to end up letting all of you bigwigs down". _

It was true. His rippling muscles made him look like a bodybuilder and the fact that he was nearly three heads taller than all of his classmates only added to this. In the end though, he was just a gentle giant that felt sympathy for stepping on a bug. The idea of him competing in the program, especially to those who knew him, was almost like the unfunny jokes and insults they would tell as kids, never really knowing the meaning of any of them. (_Go die in the program! I hope the government gets you! Why don' t you just sign up and die for the rest of us?)_

Passing a dented and beaten yellow Chevrolet Aveo, he felt the need to do something. After all, if he didn't, who would remember? Taking his switchblade and carved in two letters with a metallic hiss.

WV and DM

When he was finished, he smiled softly before outlining it in a heart.

It was never that Winston simply hadn't tried in school; it was just that he had just never been able to make the grades. Even if he crammed all night for an exam, he would still find a red number in the fifties glaring back at him from his paper. It was fine in life to have intelligent thoughts, but if you couldn't put them into words, like Winston, you were practically screwed. This had caused many people to judge him…

Well, except her.

It had all started because of a simple decision. He had chosen to go to the art hall during summer school to pick up a painting he had left behind during the year. It was amazing how something as trivial as that could have made an impact on his whole life. Still, it had….

It had been right after he had discovered he was being held back for a year. He had begged and pleaded with his parents, saying it wasn't worth it and he would try his best to work harder, but they all knew even summer school wouldn't help. With no choice, Winston had quietly decided on repeating his first year of high school and looking like a complete idiot to all of the sophomores.

Pushing open the barred door of E106, one of the art rooms, with his Walkman blaring hard rock music, he had quickly flicked on the lights. Everything had been packed up for the end of the year, but luckily, hadn't removed the framed projects from the wall. Quickly finding his canvas, he had been prepared to leave when he had noticed that he wasn't the only one in the room. Along with that, he had just run into what was possibly the worst case of luck in the world.

Michael Palik, a senior, was already a known physcopath. Along with keeping blades, drugs, and extremely graphic pictures taped in his locker, the one thing that made him stand out from everyone else was the blue-inked swastika he had self-applied onto his forehead. Although many people thought of him as one, he detested the term, "skinhead". He viewed himself as a, "cleaner". Nobody really understood what he meant by that, but Winston, although not very smart, had enough common sense to avoid him.

At that moment, he had been in the corner of the room, sketching on a canvas with a dim light bulb hanging above him. Now that the light had somewhat focused on him, Winston realized he was drawing a purple and white field of flowers. His eyes were staring blankly at the canvas, almost like he expected it to come to life. _Who let him in school anyway? The year's over! I checked with the lady at the front desk to come in! Why the hell would she decide it's okay for somebody like him to come in?_

"Keep the door closed, nigger", he said harshly.

Gulping, Winston had quickly heaved his weight into the barred door of E106 and let it shut. Out of all the people he could have run into, out of all the times he could have walked down to pick up his damn drawing, he had to have run into Michael Palik, the maniac of Spanish Rivers High? Most people would have thought this wouldn't have been a problem for somebody like Winston, who was two heads taller than Michael to begin with, but it was useless. He was a gentle giant who didn't even like to hurt flies nontheless people.

"You're Winston Van Buren", Michael had commented. "The dumb nigger who was held back for two years? How old are you? Almost seventeen and still a freshman, huh? That's really letting down your parents. Do you know how hard they work to raise you to do your best? That's _pissing_ right on all of their hopes and dreams. But you don't care, do you? All you coons' are alike. Isn't that right?"

"Yeah", Winston gulped, powerless to say anything. "I guess it is".

He talked with a slight Southern drawl that almost made him look insane with his one unfocused eye. Advancing on Winston, and have completely forgotten about his painting of the purple flowers, he had charged like an angry bull at him. Putting up only his canvas to protect himself, he prepared for the worst. They always sensed weakness in him, and when they did, they took advantage of it. Maybe they thought it was funny that somebody nearly two hundred and fifty pounds, almost all muscle, could cower in fear like that.

"I'll clean you u-

The door to the room had opened again. A mousy-looking pale girl, petite with round glasses, was standing in the light from the hallway. Her face was expressionless, but past that, she was completely innocent looking like a child. Walking toward the oncoming fight, she had stared down Michael with her blank eyes. He couldn't punch her. It would be like punching a kindergartner for asking where babies came from.

She stared. "Why are you doing this? What could this accomplish besides wanting to just punch another person later? The only thing that hate breeds is hate".

Less than half a minute later, Michael, the basketcase of Spanish Rivers High, had left the room in confusion to return to summer school. It wasn't that he hadn't had a comeback to the girl, but it was more along the lines that he…well…didn't know how to hurt somebody like that. After reassuring her several times that he was okay (and feeling plentifully embarrassed by being comforted by a tiny girl that was two years younger than him) he had finally let her introduce herself.

"Got a name?"

"I'm Demi. I work here over the summer; I supervise the girl scouts outside with Victoria. I'm really sorry about what happened. Maybe you just get angry too easily. You have to just learn that everyone's good on the inside".

"Okay…"

An awkward silence. After that, he had done what seemed like the only sensible thing left.

"I'm Winston".

She smiled, and slight hesitation, managed to help him up from the ground. After roughly two weeks, they had become dating, and within time, the pairing of Demi and Winston was known schoolwide. They were an oddly suited, yet cute couple that the entire school supported. Even if Demi was startlingly white and Winston was African-American, nobody against it had stepped into say anything all. Their dates hadn't been extravagant either. If it was simply a walk through the park or talking in the local coffee shop, it was an equivalent to a dinner at a five-star restaurant. They would just talk…and talk…and talk…

WV and DM…

_WV and DM…_

_WV and DM…_

"_DEMI_!"

In the junkyard of Cuna Cielo, Winston Van Buren (Boy #19) didn't care that he was screaming. They could find him for all he cared; if he had to die that was perfectly justified. He wasn't cut out for something like this. Demi, on the other hand, didn't deserve to even be thrown into this whatsoever. The idea of her as a fighter was laughable. This entire thing wasn't a, "government population control program", or, "a way of cleansing the youth". It was murder. It was a mass homicide. They couldn't do this. Why would you break up something like this? Something so perfect? How twisted did you have to be?

Winston began to breathe faster as he glanced around the junkyard, pointing his switchblade out in a straight angle. Aside from the deserted and rusted cars lying in heaps across the chained-in lot, there was also thousands of pieces of scrap metal clattering his feet. There was a pit of black garbage bags in front of him, which for some reason hadn't been recycled, but he didn't care. For all he knew, somebody could have been hiding in there.

He started sprinting.

In his mind, Demi Marigold (Girl #7) was sitting quietly in her grave, knees-folded, and asking why he hadn't run fast enough.

* * *

After departing from the school, all forty-one of the legible competitors (Kevin's corpse lying in the classroom) that had remained had scattered in various directions. Some had taken time to gather their thoughts and wait for others, some had ran and hoped for the best, and some had simply broken down and hid as quickly as they could. Everyone reacted a different way, all which made great television and guaranteed thousands of thousands of views and bids.

However, only one of the forty-one had the idea to stand several feet away from the school's Danger Zone.

The cross-dresser of Spanish Rivers High School scraped his weapon, a piece of yellow chalk, across the rusted wall of equipment shed. Although his classmates may have expected somebody like him to have at least built a bomb in the two short hours since the game had started, he had decided to produce art instead. Staring at the canvas of the ocean that he had done with the chalk, Peter Juntz (Boy #9) smiled, batting the mascara on his face. His blonde wig, cut in an even pageboy style, refused to move in the wind. If they were going to die, the least he could do was feel as normal as possible until the time came.

_Go with the flow…be normal…it's time…_

"Nice picture", the voice said behind him. "What is it? A meadow?"

Tristan Igolovosky (Boy #8) was standing behind him. While Peter was respected, Tristan was the very definition of an All-American teen. Along with being a member of the baseball, lacrosse, basketball, and fencing team, he also belonged to a number of academic and extracurricular clubs, including chess, the student government, and even the fashion club. The last one was a complete mystery to most, but once you realized how much of a lady's man he was, especially around the cheerleaders, it actually made a certain degree of sense.

"It's supposed to be an ocean", Peter replied. "But whatever. Nothing comes out right when the only shade I have is yellow".

Dusting his hands off on his skirt, he glared at the school. At that very moment they were in there on their keyboards like rats, typing and sipping their coffee while an entire de-humanization process was going on outside. _Sick fucks. _Still, he would keep his cool. He had already convinced himself of this. Peter wasn't the type to give in to something like this; in fact, he was never the type to give in at all. He was a proud freak, and ironically, he was respected for it. He dressed like a girl; he liked it. That was the end of the story.

"If you're done finger painting", a harsh and nasally voice cut in. "Maybe we can actually start getting something done instead of sitting on our asses and pretending nothing's happening".

Travis Igolovosky (Boy #8), brother to Tristan and friend to Peter, was kneeling against the shed hugging his knees. Ever since they had left the school, rather than offering any suggestions on their survival, he had complained and whined that they needed to come up with an idea. It was annoying and obnoxious, but then again, this was Travis. He was the very definition of a follower and a leech. Unlike his brother, cool, confident, and self-reliant, he didn't have a chance of thinking for himself. In a situation like this, he was practically dead. All in all, he was lucky.

After leaving the school, directly after Prudence and shortly before Sadie, Peter, sizing up the last names in his head, had waited for the twins beside the school. He had considered approaching both of the Mercedes girls, but then again, as much as he didn't want to see anyone get hurt, he just couldn't bring himself to trust either of them enough. After all, it was damn near depressing just looking at their situation to begin with. Not only had twins been thrown into the game, but triplets as well. Considering how slim the odds of that were, Peter guessed the home viewers had wanted more siblings pitted against siblings and the government bigwigs had given them exactly what they wanted.

"We could dominate this whole place", Travis continued. "Blow it sky high. Nobody would mess with us. I mean, you might have gotten chalk, Peter, and I might have gotten a sponge, but you got grenades, Tristan! _Three whole bags, too_! We could have everyone at our knees if we just play it cool".

"You're such a goddamned nerd", Tristan sighed with a slight smile. "You treat life like a video game with better graphics. There's a difference between slicing up zombies on your laptop and killing somebody. You have to actually know what you're doing. You have to have a plan".

Travis glared. "I'm not a nerd!"

As sad as it was, it was complete hypocrisy. Travis, down to the word, was a geek. Not having much of a social life past his online girlfriends, he spent most of his time in his basement shooting people from across the world on online-gaming networks. Being rejected by the other students had left him with an obsession with violence, and when something was left to grow, it could be overwatered. Then again, it wasn't like Tristan, the popular jock, picked on his brother for it all. Although he would always shut him down if his opinion was stupid, he stood up for him and wouldn't let anybody back-talk about him. The Igolovosky twins were close. Well, at least they _had_ been until this whole thing had started.

"Well, it doesn't matter", Tristan sighed. "We're not killing anyone. We kill, we give in. I say we go with what Peter said earlier and escape"

"To where?" Travis retorted " I'm not spending the rest of my life in a country where the water's contaminated and nobody can _hablo ingles_".

"No choice, bro. The closest place we find where the Republic doesn't own it, we move in and hide for the rest of our lives. Fugitives right Peter?'

"Sort of", Peter sighed. "I've been coming up with something else too".

Listening to the twins' argument, he had only been half-paying attention as he cooked up a plan in his mind. An escape was a definite. Peter had always wanted to send them a message, give them the finger the best way he could, and this was the time. He wasn't like Zane, who organized violent rallies and practically spewed hate. He was quiet, he was opinionated, and most of all, he tried his best to stay proud of who he was. Sure, he may have been respected at Spanish Rivers for his intelligence and good humor, but outside their little community was a different story. A drag queen, a young one at that matter, wasn't accepted by society with a silver platter. He had known from the get-go that life was going to be tough; even for him. It wasn't like he had cross-dressed for no reason either. There was a definite reason. It was just…

_Normal…Normal…Normal…._

"In World War 2", Peter said suddenly. "The Japanese propelled themselves in war ships into their enemies in an attack called a kamikaze. They died in the attack, but their enemies died too. It was a suicide mission. They died for the liberation of their country, and with that, they were happy. I saw this all on the history channel one day. I didn't really think much of it until now…"

Glaring at the school, where they were sipping their coffee and clicking away, Peter smiled. The twins shuddered. When Peter had a plan and he smiled, it usually had a price

"I've been thinking of launching a kamikaze on the school over there", Peter explained. "And the liberation for our country is the liberation of everyone else on this island".

Tristan stared. "Well, who's going to be the plane?"

Peter sighed. "Me".

* * *

The moment Zane Barrens (Boy #1) returned to their makeshift campsite, he realized something was horribly, horribly wrong. It could have been the unearthly aura in the air, almost too quiet, it could have been the sound of flies beginning to buzz, and most of all, it could have been the simple fact that Skylar and Jesse were no longer sitting where they had been talking; they were lying in the grass.

_The hell?_

Feeling his heart thudding, Zane dropped the firewood, mostly wet twigs, and dashed over through the clearing. He had gotten used to the feeling of the cold collar under his neck, nudging into him and pulsing to correspond with his heart. As he dashed forward, he was met with what appeared to be white capsules cluttering the ground. It looked like snow droplets on first, but on closer inspection, they were pills. _White pills. Sleeping pills. Rory's weapon._ They were all piling out of a burlap sack sitting beside the still bodies of the two lovers.

Although it was obvious what had happened, it still didn't prepare him for it when he got there.

"_FUCK!"_

Skylar Tierren (Boy #17) lay like a tired dog in front of a screen door. With his arm locked around Jesse's shoulder, it almost looked romantic if it wasn't for the fact that his eyes were inflamed and red. Whatever had been in the sleeping pills had undoubtfully broken cells in his eyes. His mouth hung open with a permanently stupid expression. It may have been the fact of what he had just done, or it could have been the fact that the chemicals in the pills had stopped the blood flow to his brain. Either way, he looked horrible. Cradled beside him like a reborn fetus, Jesse Morgan (Girl #10) looked considerably worse. Her plump face, that was pretty in a cherubic and chubby sort of way, had gone from rosy to bright white.

"_This isn't your fault_", Zane's mind yelled at him. "_You didn't cause this_!"

He'd yelled at them thousands of times before. He'd even punched Skylar around a few times, once nearly dislocating his shoulder in sixth grade. It had healed up pretty fast, and Skylar's parents hadn't even been that angry, but the memory had stayed as a constant reminder for his anger. Then again, the argument that they had just had wasn't a typical one. It was a life or death scenario. Their leader was going in circles with no clue what to do next. The group was falling apart. Both of them were cannon fodder who would never have lasted long. Surviving would have required not only murdering eachother, but also the rest of the gang. In the end, it had all been a pretty legitimate reason to drop out of the game early.

"_But it wasn't my fault_", Zane kept thinking. "_I didn't want this to happen! I yelled at you guys thousands of goddamned times before and you never took it this seriously! I was just angry! I didn't mean it! Jesse, wake up girl. C'mon_!"

Shuddering and hugging himself, the class delinquent fell to the floor wailing like a baby. Feeling the rage course through his veins, the way he felt almost every day, he screamed and grabbed his sniper rifle lying beside the two corpses. Cocking it and pulling the heavy trigger, he fired a shot into the sky, scattering birds out of trees and sending tree bark and dust scattering to the ground. They couldn't do this! The government had no right to do something like this! It wasn't productive. What did it accomplish? What did it lead to?

If one thing, and still more to come, it had lead to the hopelessness that was the suicide of Skylar Tierren and Jesse Morgan.

* * *

_Without much in Spanish Rivers besides a supposedly haunted village up in the mountains and a cheap ice skating rink on Donohue Street, any type of entertainment required a half an hour bike ride through the back woods to get to Agracaddo. Along with several clubs, a deserted railroad track perfect for doing drugs, and a half-decent strip mall with a Tex-Mex restaurant, it was also home to the Palace Theatre, otherwise known as the largest movie theatre in Oklahoma. More than often, it was also the frequent hang out of Zane Barrens and his gang._

"_Anything good playing?" Skylar said as he squinted at the various movie posters as the sound of the bell above the double-doors jingled behind them._

_Jesse shrugged. "A romantic comedy with Tara Reid and Ben Affleck or a remake of some shitty Japanese horror movie"._

"_What happened to Hollywood?" Skylar groaned. "I'd rather watch a low-budget crapfest then see another remake of a movie that was good to begin with"._

"_They don't care about making you happy", Jesse explained. "They care about money"._

"_They're not getting my money then! I'm not paying to watch any of this shit!"_

_Walking beside the couple, Zane rolled his eyes with his arm locked around J.C's shoulder. He could have argued with her, he could have even knocked some sense into her, but he had made the mistake by letting J.C take them to see another awful movie. If there was anything that had died in the last few years, it had been entertainment. If Hollywood dished out a movie that was somewhat decent, it always had subliminal messages about supporting the government. First they took the country, then they took our lives, and now they're taking our movies. Great, just great. At least Rory had done the sensible thing and went down to the railroad tracks to get high instead of coming with them._

_Glancing around the theatre, he picked out several faces he knew from school. That fat chick Logan. That dork Nathan with his parents. That big black kid and tiny girl who were dating. A few of the varsity cheerleaders. A drummer from a local band with his girlfriend. High school stereotypes._

"_Do you want anything to eat, J.C?" Zane asked._

_J.C nodded. "Chocolate peppermint milk balls, a small popcorn with no butter, and a diet coke"._

"_Ever consider paying for yourself for once?"_

_J.C shrugged. "Grandma's already mad at me for robbing her purse last time we went out. If I steal anything else I'll be in even deeper shit than I already am"._

"_Screw it", Zane sighed used to her excuses. "I only have enough money for a coke anyway"._

_Stretching his neck around, he saw Jesse paying for the tickets with loose pocket change and Skylar staring up at the showtimes on the neon monitor. All in all, and even if Zane wasn't the romantic type to judge, they were a pretty good couple. Skylar was always quiet and independent while Jesse was loud and opinionated. Even with her habit of talking for Skylar and not letting him have a say in anything, she was a nice girl. Nice girl, nice family, nice life, nice future. Taking four tickets from the stoned-looking college kid behind the counter, Jesse walked back over with Skylar beside her._

"_We're seeing the Japanese horror flick", he explained. "It starts in about fifteen minutes so we have time". _

"_I'm hungry", J.C said again. "I want my milk balls"._

"_I'm practically broke", Zane said again. "Jesse?"  
_

"_I paid for the tickets", Jesse said coldly. "I'm not paying for any more of her-_

"_Oh shit!" Skylar cried, cutting his girlfriend off. "I left my wallet by the bike rack!_

_Without another word, Skylar turned away from the others and sprinted back outside the Palace Theatre. Through the glass window beside the double-doors he vanished through,Zane could see rowdy and chanting jocks from the varsity football team that were hanging out by the bike rack. They were laughing about something dirty, and as Skylar walked outside, Zane watched all of their eyes turn to him. The biggest one has a square leather object in their hand, an object that Skylar glared, jumped, and made a grab for. Seeing what was going to happen as they shoved him to the ground, Zane quickly turned away and sipped his Coke. J.C, who appeared to have seen what had happened too, quickly turned to him in worry. _

_Although both of them were strong, both capable of fighting for what they believed in, both didn't manage well when their own welfare was on the line. Looking away, and pretending they didn't hear Skylar's ass being pounded to the ground, J.C turned to Zane._

"_Do you think they'll hurt him?" she whispered softly._

"_I'll pray they don't kill him", Zane whispered back._

_However, Jesse was the one who had a very different opinion on the matter._

"_What the hell is wrong with you guys?" Jesse yelled. "Aren't you going to do something? Don't just stand there!"_

_What happened next seemed to sail by time in front of them. Jesse had rushed outside and knocked all of the seniors unconscious, unknowingly temporarily blinding one and breaking another one's arm. As it turned out Skylar had dislocated his jaw and broken his nose. Watching the carnage from through the window, J.C and Zane had merely stared in a mix between horror and amusement as Jesse took out all six of them in half a minute. Rushing outside after the tallest one (the one with Skylar's wallet) fell, they had gotten to the bike rack just in time to hear the words come from Jesse's mouth._

"_We start at the beginning", she said to Skylar, bruised on the ground. "And we end at the finish"._

_Given how Jesse, after being released from the police half an hour later when the fight was deemed as self defense, had gone to visit him in the hospital later that night, Zane had been forced to sit down with J.C and watch the Japanese remake. Only half-focused on the movie though, he had let Jesse's words fill his mind. What had she meant? It was almost out-of-character, almost too philosophical even for someone as vocal as her to say. Still, it got him thinking. How long would it take until he was affected? With all of the changes going on in the world for the worst, how long would it take until his life was ruined by it? How long would it take until they, as a gang, were torn apart? What would happen when the idea of a normal life was gone?_

_Zane glared at the permanent subtitle at the bottom of the movie screen, "Approved by the Greater East Asia Film Distribution Branch", and, hardly even knowing what he was doing, turned to J.C sitting beside him._

"_Let's end at the finish", he said._

_Staring blankly, J.C shook her head and went back to watching the mov-_

* * *

"JESUS CHRIST!"

Spinning around, Zane was met with J.C staring blankly at him from the forest line. Her arms were cluttered with nuts and berries she had foraged, all which dropped to the floor of the clearing. Her red hair, dyed excessively to the point of almost being sickly-looking, was cluttered with dirt and twigs.

The two lovers stared at eachother like two opponents in a western, both unsure of what was going to happen next. Zane eyed the pistol fastened to J.C's waist and her fingers quickly reaching for it. Within a second, and before he was inclined to do anything other than hang his mouth open dumbly, she had cocked it and aimed it at his chest.

"J-

"I'll shoot", she shrieked. "I swear to God, Zane! Move an inch and you're fucking dead, do you hear me?"

Although she wasn't the nicest person in the world, J.C had a certain edge to her. She was tough, cynical, and most of all, seductive. There were rumors that she'd opened her legs for a lot of the guys in school besides Zane. He knew these rumor was true but he attempted to deny them. Along with being a manipulative bitch, always judging everyone and forcing everyone into doing things for her, she couldn't see past her own hide and would sell someone else's soul just to buy something trivial like a t-shirt. Still, he liked her. The two of them had screwed around with authority and the government more than anyone else in the class (once blowing up a statue of the Dictator with an M80 while on a field trip to the capitol) and nobody even considered messing with him. And there were real reasons he cared about her too. There were times when she'd shown more than the helpless tough girl exterior and showed true compassion for other people. However, staring at the pistol that could end his life at any minute, he realized this definitely wasn't one of those times.

Zane's eyes grew wide in panic. "WHAT THE HELL DID I-

"You know damn straight what you did!"

And just like that, Zane realized that every single element of the situation had turned out wrong. _He_ was in the middle of a clearing with sleeping pills everywhere. _He_ had just had an intense argument with Skylar and Jesse. And _he_ was standing right beside their poisoned and eye-bloodied bodies. Other people may have tried to analyze the situation deeper, but not J.C. Her own personal reasons made her the kind of girl that was quick to suspect and not think it over. Holding the trembling pistol in her hand, she went from bag to bag in the clearing, dumping every single water bottle, bread roll, and even map into her bag. Taking the only two meaningful weapons (Zane's AWG Sniper Rifle and her .21 Bobcat Pistol) she looked at him one last time, with a look that went beyond hopelessness. It was a look of complete betrayal and defeat in a world where everyone turned against you.

"Keep your hands _up_!" she barked.

"I'm keeping my hands up, J.C…."

"I just wanted to be in a place where I felt safe", she mumbled, her red face covered in tears. "I guess I'm better off on my own, huh?"

And with that, and lugging a slightly heavier bag over her shoulder with a sniper rifle sticking out, J.C shrieked and dashed off into the wilderness as quickly as she could. Within just a few seconds, her head of sleek red hair that had been there a second ago was gone. The sound of the sniper rifle hanging out of her backpack and smacking into trees echoed through the forest.

"_Run off then_", Zane thought bitterly, but knowing he was lying to himself. "_I'm fine. I've always said how much I wanted to twist the government's balls, and here I am. This is the perfect place for me! I should be completely geared up to find a way out of here? But then why the fuck am I so scared_? _Did they know I would get scared? Is that why they picked me out for this?"_

Glancing up, Zane felt his heart skip a beat when he saw Rory's head of greasy hair and stoned eyes staring at him from the tree-line. His face, like always, was completely emotionless, unable to determine any kind of expression. Not much for group conversation, he was always the philosophical one who kept to himself. He _had_ to believe him.

"Rory…", Zane said. "You believe me right? You know I honestly didn't mean anything I said. I didn't kill them. I mean, I've treated them like this before. They've taken everything I said before and pretty much swallowed it. Why would they suddenly pussy out now?"

_I didn't want to hurt anyone_ was the easiest way he could have phrased it, but unfortunately, he simply didn't have the sensitivity to put his words out like that. It didn't matter though. Rory didn't have a response. Shaking his head of greasy hair, he stumbled off into the forest. And with that, the gang that had been feared by their classmates in the Battle Royale hadn't turned out to be such great players anyway.

And combined with the fact that he was already feeling feint and nauseous, the former criminal of Spanish Rivers High knelt over his friends, closed his eyes, and tried to make himself wake up. It didn't work either.

* * *

**Eliminated**

**(Boy #17) Tierren, Skylar**

**(Girl #10) Morgan, Jesse**

* * *

**38 Students Remaining**


	6. Day 1: Hour 4: 38 Students Remaining

"_And nothing to get hung up about…"_

"_Strawberry fields forever…"_

The classic rock music drifted through the school from the aged record player, haunting and comforting as it brought back old ghosts. None of the soldiers in their computer terminals seemed to care though. That was the one thing that Reynold Burke, program instructor, had noticed. They all appeared and dispersed like robotic clones, typing away at the files on the monitors and shuffling from room to room. The whole atmosphere was so tense that the man felt like he would blow his brains out (which he had actually attempted at an earlier time in his life) but considering how he was being paid, he felt that he wasn't inclined to give much of a shit about anyone else there.

Drumming his fingers on the windowsill and inhaling in on a cigarette, he tried to analyze the music. _The Fab Four. Now, that's the good shit. _Born in the early fifties, he was now a middle-aged man who had lived through his childhood seeing hippy gatherings and draft cards burning into a smoldering pile of ash. Part of him had wanted to join in on the festivities, but being born in a strict family of patriots had given him an altered perception of the world. It had been an unbelievably sheltered environment. As he could recall from his father's words, the Burkes were a family of proud Americans who were a "step beyond polluting their bodies with illegal and quote on quote, "un-Christian", substances, then loading themselves into vans to take off "god knows where". The outside world was a false reality to them – not just a reality, but everything you imagined the world's filthiest farm stable to be.

Still, when his folks weren't home, the man they called Reynold Burke would sit by the window his room and play his rock n' roll. The chords had all been delicate and expressive, giving him hundreds of feelings inside that he never knew existed. Those were the times when he would have the growing feelings that he wasn't proud to be an American. But then the music would end and so would the feelings, taking them out just like his uppity feelings of drunken debauchery ended when he woke up the next morning with a hangover. Burke didn't blame his headaches on himself – instead, he blamed it on everything he saw around him. He blamed it on his friends for keeping him up at the bar, he blamed the bartender for the drink and he even blamed the damn Indians up at the reservation that he spent the night making racist jokes about. Life was screwed up, but in the end, it wasn't his problem. _You wasted your childhood, Reynold. Listening to all of that smackery-dackery hippy shit. Good thing dad burned all of these records when he found them. Slapped you around a little too. Raised you into a good man, he did. Not like the rest of those cotton-pickers…._

"Hey caffler!"

Turning around, he caught sight of one of the soldiers marching toward him. The one with an Irish accent named Ripley. A man with strange-looking sideburns and rather severe body odor, Burke hadn't taken much of a liking to him. Nobody in the pit of computer terminals had really – for the most part, the Irishman had kept to himself.

"The BRHE is dropping off food soon", Ripley said. "We're allowed to order from any of the fast-food hellholes that sponsored us. You hungry?'

"I'll just make some coffee", Burke responded. He flicked ash floating from his cigarette. "I hate greasy food".

The soldier eyed him like he'd said something unpleasant. His nose wrinkled. He surveyed him up and down, almost like he was trying to figure something out.

"You look like a redneck, you know", Ripley said. "You're from somewhere down south. Texas?"

"Texas", Burke answered curtly. "Not too far from those kids out there.".

"Looks like you can relate to them", the soldier said with a smirk. "Ever see that movie?"

"What?"

"There's a line from that movie. War flick, I think. Kind of artsy for my tastes, but still pretty damn good. Something like, 'only steers and queers come from Texas'. Which one are you?"

"Neither", Burke said. "And if I wasn't been paid for this, I'd slap you silly for that".

"No you wouldn't", Ripley replied. "Anyway though, that's beside the point. Close to the kids, huh? Not sure about how far you go with your geography, but I think it's common sense to think that Texas borders Oklahoma. At least I think it does – I never liked your country, especially when it turned around and pissed on itself a few years ago. That was when it started dreaming up mind games like this. Hey, if you feel close to those kids, maybe we should strap you into a collar and send you out there so you can brawl it out".

The soldier smiled like it was a joke but Burke didn't find anything funny in it. It really wasn't even a joke – a good joke was about booze or women driving or redneck politicians or better yet, the Indians at the damn reservation. Building a growing dislike for the man at every second, he turned back to the windowsill and looked through like an old timer watching out for children on his yard. Every so often he would see shadows run through the trees in the distance, too frightened to come anywhere near the school in fear of having their heads blown to smithereens. Trainees back at boot camp had told urban legends of winners of Battle Royales butchering their instructors. This had frightened him to no end (he wouldn't let it show and probably would have just called whoever told him a faggot) but the safe confines of the school reassured him that he'd be safe. He would be safe – there wasn't a question about it.

"What are you smiling at?" Burke growled when he noticed the man's eyes hadn't left him.

"Nothing", Ripley said with a soft laugh. "It's just funny how expendable all of you are".

"Who? Program instructors?"

"Damn right I mean program instructors. They send you over here every year just so you can act powerful in front of all of those kindergartners out there. You're all the same. There's a reason they knocked on your door and offered you the job, y'know. They didn't just shoot darts at a phonebook and call up the first person so they could have someone to host their game".

Burke glared. "Then how the hell did they choose me? This isn't a wheel of fortune".

"They pick people who have the ability to hate. People who have a sadistic nature and just want to watch kids kill themselves. A _caffler_ like you. When this is over, they'll just find someone else ready to take up the job. You're expendable. All of you".

"Look at yourself", Burke said, wondering at the same time what a caffler was. "If you die, the government will just send in another guy with a dog tag. There's hundreds of you fuckers here. You're all a bunch of sheep".

"You'll get it soon enough", Ripley sighed as he shook his head. "Anyway, stomp out that cigarette and start chalking up the body count. It'll be six soon and those kids will be wanting to see which friends of theirs are gone". He paused for a second. "I don't care if I'm expendable. I'm ready to die – that's the difference between you and me".

The soldier walked away oblivious to Burke's growing temptation to punch him in the back of the head. It would be easy – just a quick wind-up with his beefy arm and then a good smack that would send him sprawling to the floor. It wasn't worth it though – at least not yet. Shaking his head, Reynold Burke followed the orders and walked over to a free computer terminal. Sliding into the alcove chair, he quickly logged in and was met with thousands of complicated file names. After a few keystrokes, the screen flashed into green light with two separated columns of names. The majority of them were white and bold, still kicking only a few hours into the game, but around three were red with a dash through them. Clicking on the first one that caught his eye, he took another drag from his cigarette as a picture of a timid-looking Asian girl loaded onto the screen.

**G20: YAMAMOTO, MAE. ELIMINATED.**

Clicking the title, Burke was suddenly linked to a video file. The sepia tone of it instantly told him that it was a night-vision camera. The footage seemed to be of the interior of a treehouse. Two figures, both kneeling on the ground, seemed to be arguing with each other. It didn't go on for long though. The one that appeared to be a girl turned around and walked to the corner, which resulted in her collar lightning up and her frantically running around the small space. Her collar detonated a moment later, sending a splattering of arterial blood from her throat in every direction. Her head spurted off like a wayward propeller and Burke had no reaction.

He watched the video carefully, considering the girl and the fact that she'd once been living. Then he lit another cigarette and clicked on the next one. _Three days, shit…_

* * *

A savannah is an interesting place. It has a water hole and animals of every color and variety, none veering to far from their packs in fear of rejection - or worse yet - death at the hands of an eager and watchful predator scanning the high weeded grass with glowing eyes. The animals always stay in huddles, sipping their water with the little capacity they have to think and only dimly aware of the world around them. They move in herds and tight huddles; in the face of danger, it's a natural instinct to stay together and now split up.

That was sort of what the five girls walking down the shore of the southern beach that morning were like. It had been a quick and frantic rendezvous to group themselves together and they intended to keep it that way too.

Amber Prescott (Girl #13) walked in front of the line with a look of grim determination, although in actuality, this wasn't much of a change for life on the savannah. In fact, as her friends would tell you, this was the one thing about Amber that was always the same. Captain of the cheerleading squad and volleyball champion, she always approached things with the assurance of getting them done. In fact, she'd always looked like a girl who had her place in life. Blonde with a heart-shaped face and a shapely body that turned more than a few eyes in the hallway, she knew she was seen by everyone as a girl who would be able to screw her way through life without doing much of anything. With looks and money, it wouldn't be that hard to bullshit her way to success. And sadly, it seemed like the road she was destined to take. She was beautiful, she was rich, and with those two qualities together, she had blossomed into the Queen Bee of the freshman class. She knew a fortune teller would have spread out her tarot cards and predicted her mundane future like clockwork. _Savor high school while it lasted….make it to senior year….probably die in a drunk driving accident with a bunch of other popular kids…so if life_

But it wasn't what she wanted. She didn't want to be the poster child of the teenage girl for modern America, especially in the corrupted state that it was in. If anything, she wanted to let everybody see her for who she really was. When her classmates looked at her, all they saw was a shallow yearbook picture of a pretty girl who probably knew little more than looking into mirrors all day and obsessing over her looks. But it wasn't like that at all. When she looked at the pictures of her friends and her, she almost felt she was a cut-out pasted in their from a magazine. Popularity wasn't what she wanted. It was boring, it was abysmal and most of all, it made her feel sick. It just wasn't her. _Cheerleading. Bubble-gum pop music. Prom committee. Homecoming queen. God, god, god…_

And it hadn't stopped her in any way from being chosen for the Battle Royale…

Amber sighed as she walked down the shore. The salt water sloshed at her ankles as the tide rolled in, filling her nostrils with the smell of salt brine. She would have been carrying her weapon in fear of being attacked, but unfortunately, this was impossible. After departing from the school, she'd quickly checked her duffel bag and felt both dismayed and humiliated. Her assigned weapon had been a sledgehammer. Unless you were some kind of war hero from a movie, wielding one of them was next to impossible. She'd dumped it in the woods near the border of the school.

And after that she'd met up with her friends. This was what had dismayed her even more than dumping her weapon.

Amber glanced back at them as she walked along the shore. In total, their group made five: Amber, Shyla, Erin, Adrienne and Victoria, all walking in a straight line like pioneers scavenging through the old western frontier. Amber pictured a coonskin cap on her head and felt almost giddy, and in another time and place, she probably would have giggled at the idea of someone like her leading an expedition to a new world. All of the girls were the kind that had had their share of giggles. The girls were all beautiful, all of them were on the same preppy cheerleading squad, and now, all of them were sentenced to death on an island that could have been hundreds of miles away from home. It just didn't seem right to any of them. _How the hell can you go from slumber parties with karaoke and prank calls to being forced to gut eachother?_

"Shit…."

Amber's thoughts were ended when she became aware of someone moaning. Slightly worried, she glanced over at the pudgy girl walking beside her with hooped earrings. Her face was oiled with sweat, and by the look of it, she was in pain. Amber already knew this, and quite frankly, she hadn't been ignoring it either. When something scared her, it wasn't something she pushed under the bridge.

"Are you okay, Shyla?" she asked.

Walking side-by-side with her, Shyla Ryals (Girl #16) winced for a second but nodded. The way she kept massaging her head made it clear that she had gotten the worse out of the effects of the knock-out gas. She'd complained earlier that she had a headache, but by the look of it, she was suffering from a full-blown migraine. Chubby and a daily failure in gym class from volleyball to badminton, Amber's best friend wasn't necessarily weak –she was just sort of incompetent. Shyla was loud and vocal in school, unafraid to break away from the system until it did her wrong. Her schedule was tight; cheerleading; debate team; student government. Shyla didn't seem to mind though. If it meant anything, she always seemed to be smiling.

Or at least until now.

"I'm fine", Shyla sighed. "Just have to wake up a little, y'know? Once we stop I'll have a drink from my water of something. I'll probably be fine in a little bit once the sun comes out".

"You're not fine, Shyla", Erin sighed from behind them. "You have a migraine and there's no point in denying it…"

Glaring back at her, Amber couldn't help but feel a little frustrated. On a normal day she chose to tolerate Erin Thompson (Girl #19). Sometimes she even considered her a close friend for her dark, sardonic sense of humor and willingness to do anything. If they were doing a new and challenging drill, she was always the first to scramble to the top of the victory pyramid. If there was a lightning storm during one of their all-night parties, Erin would run out with a feeling of wild adrenaline to grab the cooler of beer out on the deck. But then there were the negative traits of her that made Amber draw the line. The fact that she was one of the biggest whores in their grade. The fact that she was deceitful. And most of all, the fact that she was a pessimist who never stopped complaining. _Still she's a friend. And you're going to need a lot out here…._

"If you're sick, you're sick", Erin continued. "There's no use in trying to hide the fact that we're all screwed out here. We should give into our weaknesses as soon as we can so we don't have to deal with them later. Especially when we die".

"That's cheerful", Shyla sighed. "Really, I feel a lot better now that I'm going to die with a fucking headache…"

"I didn't mean it like that", Erin said quickly. "It's just that we should figure out how we're all going to hold together here. Everyone has their good points in their bad points. If we accept the bad, we can bring out the good. And that's definitely going to help us here if someone ends up finding us".

"You don't have to keep bringing this up", Amber cut into the argument. "it just makes things worse. None of us want to fight. None of us want to talk about death. And this is about the fifth time you've talked about death since we got outside. Can't you just shut up?"

"Hey, I'm just trying to keep everyone awake here!"

Shyla glared. "Well, you're doing a pretty shitty job!"

"Look, I'm sorry! I have a loose lip sometimes. I don't mean anything by it, alright?'

Amber was trying not to listen to their argument. Staring out across the ocean, she watched as the moonlight flickered out on the sea like lanterns. The tide was sloshing in over and over, caught up in the repetitive pattern and destined to never escape from it. For some reason, there was something soothing about it. Amber had only looked at the tide for a moment before she heard the singing.

"_Then you ache just like a women…."_

The voice was nasally with the strange sense of boredom to it. Craning her neck behind her, Amber couldn't help but feel frightened. Standing behind her were the two other girls of her clique. Victoria Jenkins (Girl #5) was about as nice as they came. African-American with cornbraids and a pretty smile, she'd made a name in school for her devotion to her friends and her constant community service. Out of all of the cheerleaders, there was no denying that she was probably the nicest. And then there was the girl walking beside her who was practically her polar opposite. Olive-skinned from thousands of products with jet black hair, there was no one in the world that Amber despised more than Adrienne Spring (Girl #17). No, despised wasn't the right word. There was no one that frightened her more than Adrienne. After all, she'd been the one singing in that nasally, unpleasant voice since they left the school.

"_But you break like a little girl…"_

Adrienne's song was suddenly cut off when her eyes shot over to Amber with the sudden realization that she'd been staring at her. Amber immeadidly felt a quiver of revulsion as she turned and looked away as quickly as she could. That didn't stop her from seeing it though. Even in the corner of her eye – that same vague corner that you saw muttering behind your back in – Adrienne gazed up at her for her second with that cynical smirk on her face. _Shit._ A wad of gum was caught between her teeth. She always seemed to be snacking on gum…

"What's wrong, Amber?" Adrienne said. "Need some help?"

"Nothing", Amber said quickly. "I…I just thought I heard something. I'm trying to look out for the group, y'know?'

"That's good, Amber. That's very good. Because it would be a shame if something happened to any of us. And I'm certainly happy with you too, because for a second, I could have sworn that you were looking back at me. I don't like people who have too many thoughts, Amber. I've told you before but you don't seem to get it…"

"Oh, shut up Adrienne", Shyla growled. "Leave her alone. No one wants to hear it. And stop talking like that. Nobody's impressed by your big words".

"Look girls, can't we all just calm down?" Victoria pleaded. "I think things would go a lot better here if we just mellowed out a little. Maybe we could all catch fish and build a campfire tonight. It would be just like that time we went down to the lake last year an-

"What's wrong, Shyla?" Adrienne spat. "The pressure getting to you? Starting to crack? How's that headache?'

"Has anyone ever told you that you talk too much?" Shyla grumbled.

"Nope", Adrienne said proudly. "It's just in one ear and out the other. All water down the drain. Burned down to ash. Just like we're all about to be. Forty-two kids, one winner. One hell of a fight it's going to be, am I right girls? Can I get a _whoop-whoop_?"

"Whoop-whoop", Shyla muttered. "Now shut up. I have a headache as it is".

"Please, can't we just stop talking about this?" Victoria said. "Let's all just take our mind off everything and chill out. It's so much easier to think when you calm down. We can decide what to do when the sun comes up".

"By the time the sun comes up", Adrienne cut in. "The island will be bathed in blood with half of our class dispatched. They'll all be ghosts. Burned away. We can try to run, but in the end, nothing good's going to come out of it. They'll catch us, and after that they'll-

"Adrienne", Amber said quietly. "We…we let you in this group so…can't you just try to mellow out a little?"

"What was that, Amber? I'm a little deaf in my left ear you know".

"Nothing".

"Good, I thought so. Anyway, let's get back to the bigger picture of what's going to happen if you don't shape up. I'm picturing gallows in my mind, you know? Big posts – buncha bodies hanging there like roadkill after the witch trials.

"Stop it!" Victoria whined. "Just stop it! You're scaring me!"

Shyla glared. "Adrienne, one more word and I swear to God, I'm beating the shit out of you".

"With what? That butter knife you were assigned with? Or what about your brick, Erin? Are you eager to grind my brains into the ground with it? Or maybe all of us for that matter? What's stopping you from turning on us? Regular sandbox dilemma here, huh? Where's that school spirit, girls? Spanish Rivers Sultans all the way!"

"A better question would be what's keeping you here", Erin growled. "If you're just going to keep this shit up, why don't you just leave? None of us want to hear you anymore. If you're trying to drive us up the wall, it's working".

For some reason, this seemed to shut her up. Closing her eyes, Adrienne looked wistfully out toward the ocean and kept humming the song to herself again. For an odd second, Amber's mind flushed back to when her grandfather was still alive and prone to epileptic seizures, so they'd give him his pills grinded into warm milk. He'd get a dream-like, unaware expression afterward. Walking ahead of the group, Amber couldn't help but thank God that the argument had finally ended. Whenever Adrienne went into her strange rants, it was usually a good idea to stay out of the battleground if you didn't want to be the next target. One of the most charismatic people in school, Adrienne had the uncanny ability to manipulate people for her own gain. And Amber knew enough about this to last a lifetime.

"Do you think we should set up camp soon?" Shyla asked as she walked to the front. "I mean, I don't want to slow everyone down here, but I feel like my skull's about to burst".

"We'll stop soon", Amber said gently. "There's lots of buildings around here. I'm sure one of them has aspirin or something - maybe we could even find a box of Advil."

"Thanks for looking out for me", Shyla said. "Really, you're being a great friend and I appreciate it in a time like this. But I'm not going to make anyone run out just so I can relieve myself of my fucking headache. I want us all getting out of here in one piece".

"You think we have a shot at doing that?'

"Who knows", Shyla said and then she smiled. "If we stick together, we can do a lot girl. Even if the collars are counting down, I'll pride myself knowing that I stood by you guys until the end".

"That's stupid", Adrienne said suddenly. She was talking again, and it was just a sudden change as when she'd stopped. "That's just fucking stupid. What's that going to accomplish out here. Right here, what matters is making a point and getting what you want done. There are rivalries out here, and this is the perfect opportunity to settle them. It's just what you do in a time like this. This is how you face your troubles. And the world doesn't need people like you to face them anyway, Shyla".

There was no way she could stand on the side this time. Amber had reached her breaking point. Turning around and having no regrets looking Adrienne dead in the eyes, she glared at her and said:

"And the world doesn't need you at all, Adrienne!"

A deathly silence fell over the group, and immeadidly, Amber realized she'd crossed lines that weren't met to be crossed. Even when a gunshot shot out from somewhere on the island, none of the girls moved. Adrienne snacked away noisily on her gum, eyeing Amber with that bored, cynical expression on her face. _Mad. She'd mad_. _Things always happen when she gets mad. God damn it. Drink the milk. Go back to sleep. Damn it…_

"Amber", Adrienne said impatiently. "I told you what I think of people who think, and quite frankly, you're full of thoughts today. I think we need to have a word alone, don't you?" She turned to the others. "Amber and I are going to have a walk through the forest together. Just a little stroll. The rest of you take a break and stay here. Let's all take the great advice of one Victoria Jenkins here and, 'chill out'. C'mon Amber".

"I'm really not sure if that's such a good idea", Shyla said with another hostile glare. "But really, that's just my opinion".

"And I'm not sure if you going on Weight Watchers is a good idea, Shyla", Adrienne snapped. "But really, that's just my opinion. C'mon, Amber".

Before anybody had a chance to do anything, Adrienne had grabbed Amber's wrist and hauled her away toward the forest. Although she tried to break free from the girl at first, she quickly saw that it was a losing battle. For somebody so fragile-looking like they needed someone to take care of them, Adrienne was surprisingly strong.

For what seemed like a split-second, she heard Erin mutter from behind her, 'God, what a fucking weirdo".

Then the two of them, Amber Prescott and Adrienne Spring, departed from the beach quickly; vanished as the tree's canopy enveloped them into what seemed like complete darkness; ran like children trying to find a gingerbread house in the woods. Zigzagging back and forth between trees, Amber was dragged into what felt like the very heart of the forest. _The belly of the beast._ They eventually reached a clearing in the middle of a circle of tall, drooping trees. That was when Adrienne stopped. She didn't just stop; she halted in her place, almost like she'd been frozen in time by an invisible barrier. Seeing her moment, Amber screeched and wrenched herself from the girl's grip. She tried swinging a punch at her but ended up missing completely. Her punches, in short, were feeble. _Just like the rest of her…_

"Cute", Adrienne commented, stepping back to avoid the swing. "Turning violent right when the situation calls for it. Civilized southern girl, aren't you?""

"Fuck you", Amber spat.

"I just wanted to have a word with one of my closest friends", Adrienne said. "Ladies aren't meant to use such language, you know, so I'd watch your mouth before you bite off more than you can chew. Anyway, here we are: Cuna Cielo. Slightly off from the Gulf of Mexico, rich old, retired tourist central, and what do you know, the sight of the 2008 program! What are the odds?"

Amber tried to say something, but no words ended up coming out. She didn't know what Adrienne was getting at.

"Are you familiar with bees, Amber?"

"I'm…I'm getting the hell out of here…"

It all happened so fast. The moment she turned to run, she saw the slight movement at Adrienne's side. When she gazed back, her heart skipped a beat at the sight of the Colt pistol being pointed directly at her heart. Although the weapon had been assigned to Victoria, she'd given it to Adrienne immeadidly after they left the school. _How the hell did you forget that?_

Her jaw opened dumbly but no words came out. The words clogged together in her mind, becoming one string of heartbeats, forest noises and heavy breathing until it was hardly a conscious thought anymore. _I have a gun pointed at me._

"Adrienne, I-

"Don't move, bitch. One word and you're brains are going to be dripping out of your ears. Answer the question. Bees. They're yellow and black and buzz around and have stingers – they're also dying off more and more every day, but that's a different story. Are you familiar with them?"

"I…I know what bees are, Adrienne…."

"That's great. Because I have a story to tell, and I think we need that out of the way, because bees play a quite a roll in it. You do to actually, but I suppose we'll get to that later. You see, It's a fairy story - I'm not that great when it comes to a good fantasy. I'm more of the romantic type so you'll have to excuse me if there's a few blunders or literary clichés along the way. Anyway, without further adieu, I present to you my greatest work yet".

She clicked the pistol off safety.

"Once upon a time in a big hive, there were hundreds of bees that all flew around and lived peacefully. Everyone was assigned a job. There were workers, and gatherers, and all sorts of other cute little tasks that would make your head spin. They lived peacefully, Amber. Orderly, but peacefully. There was quite a social system in their hive, you see; they all had to pay their respects to the queen bee, or else they're lives would be made a living hell for the next four years until they graduated. The queen and her royal circle did a great job controlling the peasants. The outcasts. Think of it all like a kingdom – or better yet, think of it all like a _high school_".

She took another step forward. The gun seemed even bigger up close. Amber looked into the dark shaft and was somehow reminded of the end of a cigarette bud, the kind her father always smoked in the living room after dinner. Instinctively, her hands crept up to her heart as she took another step backward. Amber wondered what it would be like to get shot. Would you actually feel the bullet spit through your bloody muscles or would you just fade into black. What happened after the black? She half-expected the bullet to finish her off right there, but instead, the story went on:

"But you see, there was one bee that didn't quite agree with the social system – a little bit of a rebel with an anarchist streak on her side. Let's call her Adrienne Bee. She was quite fed up with the queen and her royal circle in the hive. Let's call the queen Amber Bee, shall we? Yes, I think that will work out perfectly. Upon her entrance to the hive, Adrienne Bee decided that she would worm her way into the royal circle and turn the social system upside down. And let me tell you, it worked quite well. So to make a long story short, Adrienne Bee became the queen….

That was when it happened. The gun suddenly arced downward and fired with a dull popping sound. With the feeling of a thick pellet burying under her skin, a burning sensation sprung up Amber Prescott's left leg. She collapsed to the ground of the forest; then she felt warm and wet liquid drip out like a broken water filter. Somehow she remembered the time Erin had come over when they were kids and they'd been playing baseball in the living room. One thing led to another, and the next thing they knew, her mother's prized fish tank was destroyed with water spilling out in a stream of ornaments and broken glass. The water had just kept coming out – and very soon later, the fish had been dead. _It's all a dream. Drink the milk. Open your eyes and you'll see grandpa again sipping his milk and staring out his window. Just don't let it end here… _

A strange sound somehow escaped Amber; the sound a mouse made when it was being toyed upon by a cat. Everything below her shin felt like it was on fire and her leg felt like a deflating water balloon. Her heart beat was suddenly off the scale and her face peppered in sweat. _I've been shot in the leg, I've been shot in the leg, I've been shot in the-_

"And they all lived happily ever after".

"YOU BITCH!" Amber screamed. "YOU FUCKING CUNT! HOW CAN-

"Well, I'd love to stay and hear your obscenities, Amber", Adrienne said. "And once again, it's quite a shock to hear them from a mouth of such a pristine, country girl like yourself. But I'm afraid I have to go back to the royal circle. I didn't give you a killing shot, and I'm pretty sure you'll live since I didn't hit the main vein. There'd be much more blood. You'll live, but it'll hurt like a bitch. Come back to the beach whenever you want, or more appropriately, _the hive_. Adios amigo".

And then she walked away with that pistol in her hand, humming that song about being a woman to herself in her own,little world where things probably made a great deal of sense. Sprawled out on the ground with blood pumping out of her leg, Amber wanted to bawl up like an infant and cry. It was over. It was strange, but up until being shot in the leg, she hadn't even taken in the situation. She was going to die. All of her friends were going to die. And she was never going to see her family or hometown again.

But still, in the back of her mind, she found herself remembering a lot. Cheerleading practices and sleepovers. Parties and gossiping by lockers. And most importantly, how all of that began…

* * *

In the beginning, the only friend she had known was Shyla. She had been her best friend since grade school when they still played hopscotch and jump rope at recess; in short, they were completely inseparable. It was truly odd when you looked at it, because somebody beautiful like Amber looked like she had no need to be friends with Shyla. Shyla Ryals, a feisty speaker who would later find a support spot on her high school cheerleading team, was plump and rosy-cheeked like a warm marshmallow. The factors didn't add up.

However, as time went on, things slowly began to change for the worse. Near the end of fifth grade, while they were playing hopscotch, a group of boys had been whispering and pointing at them like they were some kind of sideshow attraction. Even though Amber hadn't understood then, it couldn't have made more sense now; the boys of Spanish Rivers Elementary had begun to take an interest in girls. At the time, oblivious to the world and its evils, her tiny hands had crept up slowly to her undeveloped breasts. That was when she realized that she held a power – not just a power, but a _curse._

Time went on.

Before Amber knew it, she was drowning in popularity and beauty had become very much a sin; a hoard of giggling girls were now playing hopscotch with her. Adrienne, Victoria, and Erin were all among them, and they all proclaimed that they were Amber's, "friend". Confused, Amber had busily left the hopscotch court with Shyla, only to discover the girls were following them. Whether it was to the water fountain or the swings, her newfound friends were following her everywhere, pretending they were actually speaking to her when they really weren't.

It was odd to say the least, almost comical, but Amber Prescott was bemused by the fact that she'd been forced into being popular.

In the end, she had been powerless to fight back. The facts were facts - even though she never had wanted to, Amber had formed a clique of popular, pretty girls. _It's all a fault, it's all a disguise – and you don't want any part in it. Goodbye Queen Bee. Time for the real Amber to come on in. Where'd she get off to anyway?_

In middle school, things changed even worse. She would sit down at lunch and be joined by a girl she hardly knew who would proclaim to be her friend. She hardly knew any of the girls around her, and yet, they all seemed to know her; she was Amber Prescott - the Queen Bee of Spanish Rivers - and they all desperately needed to become just like her. The moment she wore an outfit, they would automatically mimic her. The moment she liked a certain rock band, they would all be gossiping about the, "hot", lead singer. Even though her own clique, which she despised, had lost and gained members over the years, five had lasted the test of time: Amber, Shyla, Erin, Adrienne, and Victoria. As time went on, Adrienne turned into a raging monster. She kept Amber in place as the leader, forcing her to live a cruel archetype of teen life with mind-numbing partying and cruel rumors. Adrienne had made her pick who was in and who was out. Adrienne had made sure their wardrobe matched on Fridays. Adrienne had always checked her makeup before school. _Adrienne, Adrienne, Adrienne…._

It was all part of high school. _The hive. _All in all, it made perfect sense for Adrienne to be the one to shoot her. Maybe, in this strange new world that they called Cuna Cielo, Amber Prescott deserved to be shot.

She closed her eyes and heard their voices:

_Hey Amber, I heard about that party at your house next weekend. Lauder's bringing the booze, right? What? What the hell do you mean there's no party?_

_Amber's, like, really, really nice! I think we might even be best friends!_

_Everyone's going to the party you know! I mean, everyone that's cool. There's Denise Raucher, Lorraine Milligan, Erin Thompson and those other girls, oh, and Amber Prescott. You know her, right? I mean, who doesn't?_

_Hey Amber!_

_Amber!_

_Amb-_

* * *

Then they'd giggled. _That damn giggle..._

But those were all times long gone and voices she could hardly put a face to now. Amber's leg felt like transparent and flaming jelly had been lodged inside it. The blood soaked her jeans thoroughly, leaking through the fabric like black paint in the dark forest. Not knowing exactly why, she laid out onto the forest ground and started to sob at how her own popularity had eaten her from the inside out. And as Adrienne's shadowy figure vanished through the forest, she couldn't even motivate herself up from the ground.

Amber Prescott (Girl #13), or more specifically, Amber Bee, had been overthrown.

* * *

There was no doubt that there was a stigma on certain students in the Battle Royale. Already feared for one reason or another, they were able to walk out into the battlefield with an aura of danger to them that made them a topic of immediate worry for anyone else on the island. With high school and civility wiped cleanly out of the picture in one stroke, petty whispers in the hallway became full-out accusations of life or death. Some people just had stigmas.

And no one carried more of a stigma with them than Jude Mercedes (Boy #11).

Walking along the northern shore with a backpack slung over his shoulder, there wasn't much at first glance that could have picked the boy out of a crowd. Handsome with a head of neatly-combed red hair and a face that didn't even seem to have the slightest acquaintance with teenage acne, the only unsettling feature about the boy were his eyes; dark, hollow and seemingly going nowhere, it was hard not to look at them and be faced with the idea that there was nothing underneath the boy's skin but vacant air.

Jude Mercedes had the appearance of a puppet. A puppet that was polished every night, sure, but a puppet nonetheless.

He walked along the northern shore with his backpack full of foraged supplies jingling against his knees, feeling like a drifter out on the open desert road. A guy with cowboy boots with the little wheels on them that walked across snake pits and ate at roadside diners at night. That was the kind of guy his father would have called lazy; unproductive too; a scourge on the cesspool of society that needed to be cleansed by Darwinian philosophy. _A person that you could manipulate…_

Jude hated his father but he loved him too.

He walked along the high, grassy cliffs that overlooked the ocean. The forest overlooked his shoulders and pine trees rose up high and poked their ugly snouts into the sky. Jude was only vaguely interested in nature. A con artist through and through with an outlook on the world that could have been compared to black and white, there was very little that fazed him. People were pawns in short, and while it was downright criminal to get your hands dirty, it didn't hurt to take out those that weren't cut out for the long run. _The ones that were going to be cogs…_

Mae Yamamoto had been a cog. He'd watched her walk down the hallway at school with her books held up to her nose and the world around seeming more like a jungle of prey then a small town high school. She was frightened – and in the real world, fear had to be distilled until the emotion that went with it was vague and omnipresent, but unnecessary at the same time. Mae had been a stupid person. The world was full of them, and sometimes, Jude pictured keeping them in a jar. They'd all hammer on the glass and trample over each other. They'd probably stink it up too.

Jude wasn't insane – he didn't think so and nobody talked to him enough to tell him otherwise. Besides, if anything it was just what his father was putting into his head. It was all just a load of hot air more or less, so what did it matter? Besides, in all actuality, he hadn't actually murdered Mae Yamamoto. She'd been curious about death, terrified of what lay in the shadowy corners in life, so he'd simply given her a boost step up into the great kingdom of Heaven. She was getting her angel wings and soon she'd be soaring out into the open starlight. Or rotting in the ground. Either way, Jude really didn't care anymore. If you saw something that frustrated you – a stupid person that didn't make sense – it was commonplace to do away with him. He'd murdered her by sheer manipulation anyway, so by that logic – and coupled with the fact that he hadn't lain a finger on her – he hadn't killed her. _Keep a clean record, that's what dad always said. They do it to themselves. Not your fault at all. All the stupid people….._

So by that logic, he hadn't actually done anything wrong.

Jude kept walking until he noticed something that fascinated him. There were few things in the world that could quip his interest – seeing how the world was black and white with no shades of gray in between - but he found an unhealthy sense like a mystic aura was around the two corpses piled in the grass in front of him. _That was fast. _He picked up speed and began to jog over quickly, feeling the morning dew on the high grass swish against his ankles. Then he got to the bottoms and glanced down, feeling like a mortician. One was eagle-sprawled, almost in the uncanny shape of a crucifix, and on closer inspection, Jude was able to discern that it was a boy. His long blonde hair was in sweaty tangles on his face, and when he got even closer, he was able to put a name to the face. Skylar Tierren. Another cog. He was the epitome that showed the worst of the worst in Jude's mind - a member of that unlikable crowd that smoked weed in the woods behind the elementary school, completely unprepared for the harsh future. They didn't realize that there were amoebas in them. _Multiplying every second; feeding; bringing them closer and closer to death every second as their bodies winded down like grandfather clocks…_

In his head, in a place that seemed far away and close at the same time, Jude suddenly heard his father's voice: _Do you know what happens to all the stupid people, Jude? Do you know what happens to all the people that don't matter?_

Simple. They were cleanly removed from the picture. Just like Skylar Tierren. Clenching his fists but then reminding himself that he loved his father to no end, Jude looked over at the next victim. This one was a girl. A little chubby with a head of bushy, brown hair, he was able to quickly name this one too. It was Jesse Morgan. Their arms were enveloped each other – her face nudging into his skinny shoulder like a pillow - and in the back of his mind, Jude felt a mix of pity, envy and bewilderment. _I wonder what that feels like…._

But those were emotions better left untouched. Shaking his head and feeling what seemed like a good headache coming on, he was prepared to walk away when he noticed something else. Something that completely altered that untouched bigger picture and sparked his interest even more; another likely string to the equation.

There was a third body sprawled off near the other two, its head tucked into its stomach like a newborn infant and its face stained in tears. The only difference between this one and the other two however, was that this one was plaintively alive. It breathed softly, and after a few minutes, Jude grew tired of watching it. The living body was none other than Zane Barrens –another member of the large and growing crowd at Spanish Rivers Community High School that Jude detested and looked down on like a bug under a microscope. Always angry about something with the idea that screaming would get people to listen to you, Zane was somewhat of a leader among the school's delinquent crowd; well, maybe not a leader but at least looked up to. A wannabee-anarchist with a tendency to plan student protests for little whim or reason, Zane was simply somebody who lived off the primitive idea of control and hate. _And they go together, Zane. They sure do. You could end it right now, Jude. You could grind him into the ground. You could-_

Jude's headache worsened and he stopped thinking for a moment. The wind whistled around him and the bodies and he felt frozen in space, almost forgetting for a second that he had been drugged with a sleeping agent and taken to an isolated location to murder his classmates. Then his thoughts trickled back and he grimaced. He wanted to cry – unbelievably so – but Jude Mercedes hadn't cried in what seemed like seven years and was determined to keep it that way. There were stupid people all around him, multiplying like germs and unaware of the bigger picture. He pictured them running around a field like lamb in the rain, oblivious of where to go because of their microscopic brains. If he crossed paths with another one, well, he'd simply dispatch of them like he had of Mae. _Then you won't be a killer. Not now, not ever. How do you like that Dad?_

Jude looked down at the bodies one final time and then kept walking.

The day was going to be a good one.

* * *

_Out…_

_Under…_

_Out…_

_Under…_

Mitch Kelley (Boy #10) had gotten used to the mind-numbing rhythm of stitching Terry Klingerman. He pulled the needle in and out through the puckered and bloody flesh, cringing each time as a small river of brownish liquid streamed out. She stirred occasionally – sometimes restlessly – but then she would simply shiver and go back to her seemingly catatonic state. Mitch wasn't a doctor and his ventures into the medical field were almost non-existent, but if he could theorize anything, she had probably gone into a state of shock. If not, well, he didn't want to know. The fact of the matter was that he had work to do.

"C'mon Terry", he muttered. "Don't die on me".

His flashlight acted as gritty luminance for the operation and he held it in his left hand awkwardly, cascading light over the blood trickling onto the pavement around him. The stitches were decent enough, if not a little rickety like a broken ladder, but it was fairly clear that infection would seep in soon without proper care. All in all, the stitching was definitely a high-school job; he could only pray that he hadn't punctured anything vital under her flesh.

Working as hard as he could, Mitch started on the next stitch, letting his thoughts wander while he did it. It was only fair when it came down to it. Terry was a living person – even if there were a plentiful amount of students in Spanish Rivers High School who would claim otherwise – and Mitch was proud to confirm the fact that he valued her as an equal. Terry Klingerman, with her grimy, long-sleeve sweatshirts and doctor slips that always got her out of gym class. Terry Klingerman, who always smelled like sweat and had randomly come in one day in seventh grade with her hands painted fluorescent blue. There were very few people who could relate to her, and right now, Mitch was obligated to save her life.

"That's it", he whispered. "Easy does it".

He sighed and pulled the thread through, effectively knotting the stitch and beginning to cut and thread the next one. He felt strange. It wasn't just the fact that he was stitching together a classmate on an island miles away from home – it was something entirely different. He was face-first and getting his hands dirty, plunging them into blood and getting a first-hand experience on the action. That was really something that had never happened before. At school, he'd been a somewhat artistic kind of loner with a small group of casual friends who he ate lunch with. He frequented concerts down at the Pequeno Mega-Dome, he'd juggled several part-time jobs in the last few years, and in the end, he'd been happy with all of it. Mitch was content with his workaholic mother, content with his so-so grades and content with his average looks. He wasn't sure exactly how life worked, but if anything, his perception couldn't be that far off that if you just cruised under the radar, you'd be fine. _Be a bystander. Don't get involved. Just watch it all from the side. That'll keep you safe. Still, that didn't stop you from ending up here. How the hell were we chosen anyway?_

Finishing the last stitch and quickly knotting it with a loop of the sowing needle, Mitch glanced up at the sunrise. In the lackluster dramatic books he had always read in school in literature class (the government had confiscated almost all of America's classic literature from schools because of themes that ranged from communism to anarchy) the sun was always some kind of strange metaphor for hope and looking toward tomorrow. That was a laugh. The only thing the sun reminded Mitch of now was that he was stranded on an island with an explosive collar strapped around his neck. Along with that, he had just stitched together…

_Terry, Terry, Terry. You just stitched together Terr-_

Almost like he had just realized what he had done, Mitch jumped back, hopping onto his feet and backing away from Terry's resting body. He had just saved Terry Klingerman; the nutcase of Spanish Rivers. They'd heard a gunshot from inside the post office, and the next minute, she'd hobbled out down the steps with her arms flailing and blood spurting out of her wrists. Who knows what could have happened? What was saying that Terry Klingerman couldn't be one of the bad ones? _One of the ones that were play-_

Before he even had a chance to consider what he had done, Terry Klingerman moaned.

_Her eyes were opening…_

With a shriek, Mitch heaved his backpack over his shoulder and quickly began to dash away.

_CLINK!_

He suddenly felt searing agony in his foot. He uttered a sharp cry out of his mouth and collapsed to the ground, nearly spraining his ankle. Something that felt like a maniacally sharp raindrop had pierced through the bottom of his old and tattered sneaker. Feeling his skin puncture, Mitch fell to the ground, howling in pain. The agony was cemented there in his foot, lodged in between the lining of his shoe and the ground.

Swearing under his breathe, Mitch struggled to hobble up from the ground. When he glanced down at his feet, he saw several of the sewing needles in Terry's sowing kit. Then he came to the realization that one of the needles had punctured through the cheap lining of his shoe. _Stupid, how could you be so stupid, how…_

"Ahhh…."

It was a low moaning sound, almost like the croaking of a dying motor boat. Turning in horror, he could only watch as Terry slowly began to push herself up from the ground. Her grayish, blonde hair, was tangled around her face in knots like a complicated series of braids, and for an odd moment, Mitch wondered if she'd ever combed her hair in her life. Terry's face was ashen pale, but on what was either the positive side or not, she was clearly alive. Mitch had hardly been aware of just how much blood a human carried around with them, and just how much you could lose and still get up walking. _She's up. She'll get you. She's going to get you because you're so stupid!_

"Please!" Mitch screamed, his fear cracking his voice. "Don't hurt me!"

As he crawled backwards, Terry turned around and began to advance toward him. At first, she stumbled, clearly from the loss of blood, but in an instant, she was perfectly fine. Fainting had worked better than any kind of drug they could give you in the hospital. He had thought he would die when Luke attacked him, but instead, it was going to be like this. _You're not going to find Adam. You're not going to get out of this. You'll be the first name on the announcement. Nobody will know what happened to you._ His mind drifted back and he wished he was back home, sitting on his couch and watching a late movie with his sister as he waited for his mom to come back from her job at the strip mall. His sister would cook up a bowl of pop corn and they'd toss back jokes. Everything would be good. Everything would be normal.

To his surprise, Girl #6 suddenly stopped in her tracks. Struggling to keep herself steady from the loss of blood – and reminding him at the same time of a tree that was about to topple over - she collapsed limply down to the ground beside Mitch's trembling shoe, landing on her knees in a daze. Slowly, with her dream-like, protuberant eyes glanced up at him, she began to pull out the needles one-by-one.

"I told you I did this, right?" her surprisingly soft voice asked. "This morning?"

Pulling up her stitched arm and cringing, she showed him the soft cuts along the back of her arm, obviously done softly by a knife. Mitch nodded to show that he understood, his heart still feeling like a jackhammer in his chest.

"Yeah, you told me, Terry…"

Terry looked somewhat surprised. "You know my name, huh?"

"Well, no offense, but everyone talks about you…

Biting her lip, Terry offered a cynical smile and pulled out another needle, this time slightly hard. Mitch cringed from the pain as he felt blood stain his socks. The smile that she did was one that Mitch had never seen before – it was sad, almost like somebody who was dead was trying to still be alive. Terry's smile was a disguise.

"Yeah", she said with a grin. "I guess I'll introduce myself before any of those rumors about me get any worse. My name's Teresa Rose Klingerman and I go to your high school. We've never talked before. Anyway, would you mind enlightening me on what you've heard?"

As bad as the situation was, Mitch found himself grinning. "J.C Brooke says you're an undiagnosed schizophrenic and keep the bullet-ridden bodies of people that you hate in your basement. You're also a mass-murderer and your name is a cover up".

Smiling for the first time, and showing that her teeth vaguely seemed to have a friendship with her toothbrush, Terry plucked out the sixth and final needle from his throbbing foot. "And you're Mitch Kelley", she said. "I've seen you around school. I think you were in my gym class last year?"

"Oh yeah", Mitch said. He paused for a moment. "You kind of never showed up".

"Doctor said so", Terry said. "He doesn't want me doing any contact sports. I'm on a bunch of medications right now".

"Meds for what?"

Terry glanced up for a second, maybe even preparing to answer, but then she shook whatever she was going to say away, apparently thinking better of it. Her lips pursed as she began to cup her hands and form the needles from her sowing kit into a pile.

The sun was beginning to rise now across Main Street; the car hoods speckled with morning light as it broke through the clouds; rays scattering down onto the ancient pavement and lighting up every detail like sidewalk chalk. Back home, it was nearing the town that they normally got up for school. But that world was gone now. In fact, it was a universe away – time-wise, maybe even a century had passed on since the time of Spanish Rivers, Oklahoma.

"Islands are really pretty, you know", Terry said thoughtfully. "Lots of colors. People don't notice these things".

"I guess they don't", Mitch said. "Ever think of becoming a poet or something?"

"I'm not a good writer", Terry replied. "I'm a better thinker if you know what I mean. There's some words that you just can't get down on paper. Life's tricky, Mitch. You gotta remember that. Especially when people say things about you.

"You don't know the half of it", Mitch replied. "And neither does anyone else".

Terry's wide eyes enlarged even more. "Oh, if you thought I was talking about the things people say about you, that's not what I implied. Sorry if you took it the wrong way, man. It's just that you can't let people put you down. In the end, your mind's the most valuable thing you have. It's how you find your destiny, and in the end, some high school rumor isn't what's going to make your destiny".

"Funny how rumors start, huh?" Mitch laughed.

"I guess…"

Struggling to stand up, Terry offered Mitch her hand. Struggling not to touch her stitched and battered wrist, Mitch managed to stand up and cringe from the pain in his face. Looking at Terry's face, he realized that she actually didn't have a bad-looking face under her mess of cluttered hair. It was heart-shaped and seemed to still have some youth in it. The only turn-offs were her hygiene and medications that had given her a weathered, old appearance.

"So", Mitch began. "I mean….well….did you really try to-

"Kill myself?" Terry said, her eyes enlarging again. "I think you took it the wrong way. I just got scared and did the easiest thing possible to get out of the situation. I make bad decisions when I'm scared".

"Why do you cut yourself in the first place?"

"Remember when J.C said, "You're doing it for attention", this morning?"

"That's not what I mean. Why did you just cut yourself now? Did you not want to compete in the game that badly?"

"It's really none of your business", Terry sighed. "All I'll tell you is that gunshot you heard wasn't someone trying to kill me. I found a gun behind the counter in the post office. The safe was wide open. I ended up missing so I did the next best thing and went for my wrists. Hey, what did you get as a weapon?"

"A taser".

"Well, I get a sowing kit, you know", she replied. "but I could go back in and get the gun I found in the safe if you want. Then we-

KA-CLANG! KA-CLANG!

Suddenly, the sound of an out-of-control stapler ran through the air. Almost like second nature, Mitch and Terry both dove to the ground for cover. There was a hectic moment of scrambling where they didn't know what to do, but then they ducked behind a beaten up looking Ford Explorer that had been parked haphazardly beside the post office. Mitch's heart started to beat as he backed up against the door to the passenger seat; as it did, his collar began to light up in red flashes, corresponding quickly to his pulse. Terry nudged against him, but he was hardly aware of her. He only knew that somebody was shooting at them.

"It's Darren!" Terry whispered.

Glancing up, Mitch saw she was right. Illuminated by the sunrise setting up upon Main Street, Darren Warner (Boy #20) walked down the street like a godly shaman in the sunlight. Like always, he was fidgeting with his fingers and rocking back in forth in his pace, a simple side of effect of Down's Syndrome. However, one hand couldn't fidget; a Glock 17 Pistol was resting in it and he was holding it out down the street like a gunslinger. His shadow cascaded down the street like an image from a movie.

KA-CLANG! KA-CLANG!

Thinking back about what Darren had said in the classroom, Mitch was hardly surprised that he would do something like this. The words played again in his head: _I wanna die people_. Quickly crawling behind one of the cars, Terry close behind, he listened to the sound of the bullets denting the other side of the car. Light flashed in the air and the acrid scent of gunshot clogged his nostrils.

"I'm a war man!" Darren's voice screamed. He fired again. "I'm a war man!"

"Just run!" Terry shrieked.

Without another thought, Mitch Kelley (Boy #10) and Terry Klingerman (Girl #6) tore out from behind the Ford and made a frantic dash down Main Street, the straps of their backpacks beating up and down on their shoulders and the wind whipping at their face. Quickly turning a corner, where Mitch nearly fell to the ground due to his foot, they vanished from the view and range of Darren Warner (Boy #20).

* * *

He watched them leave. He wasn't upset. He was a war man, and the war men had to keep fighting in the war. Darren didn't quite understand, but for some reason, _the hurt_ was a bad thing. This was strange, because as far as Darren was concerned, "dying" people wasn't a bad thing. After all, people, "got died", eventually. After his brain had stopped developing maturely and he had been diagnosed with Down's Syndrome, Darren's emotions of a five-year old hadn't rested well as he grew out of his childhood.

He was confused. So confused.

The two others would come back later to finish the deadly battle. Until then, Darren decided he was going to do the dying.

As his fingers fidgeted against the metal shaft of the gun, Darren slowly began to shamble down Main Street in his strange and lopsided walk, off to find more war men, just like him, to battle.

* * *

**No Students Eliminated**

* * *

**38 Students Remaining**


	7. Day 1: Hour 5: 38 Students Remaining

The Krakhoffe Manor was the largest building on the island of Cuna Cielo. Its former owner had been one Joseph Krakhoffe, a food industry tycoon with big retirement plans, who had unexpectedly suffered from a stroke in the late 80's that confined him to a wheelchair. Unable to continue his business, he went with the package every elder dreamed of when their lives began to wind down like old clocks: buy land on an isolated island where nobody could bother you, move to said home and stay there until the reaper came. Oddly enough – and cited in the documentary on the ongoing case that had appeared on television several years prior to the competition – Joseph Krakhoffe only spent three days in his luxurious home before he died in what appeared to be an accidental overdose.

Aside from occasional renting by rich tourists, the house lay deserted for two decades.

It sat there nestled on the highest peak of the northern mountain, glaring down at the entire island with the perfect view to watch the roaring waves crash into the rocks of the shining lagoon below. The architect who designed it had been a man Krakhoffe had commissioned from Holland. With five-stories, an Olympic swimming pool, a miniature golf course outside, and a beautifully furnished patio in the back, it was one of the very few beauties that Cuna Cielo had to offer. _The single jewel._

And so now it was the hideout of Miguel Chavez and his gang.

* * *

Sitting at the kitchen table, Miguel Chavez rested his muddy and caked sneakers on the table top. He clicked his tongue without really knowing it, not really taking notice of anything around him. He stared at his beaten old sneakers for awhile, realizing in the back of his mind that he could have afforded the kind that were state-of-the-art if he wanted to; the fancy ones that repelled water and stopped your feet from sweating. But in his mind- and only his – that was utterly laughable. If it was true that high school reputation didn't matter in the real world, Miguel would have been the first to step in and say otherwise. Fully aware of the fact that he was a walking stereotype wearing a mask, he dressed in baggy street clothes and always wore pearl ear-studs that shone just like the top of his nearly-bald head. He was impressive-looking, sure, maybe even a little threatening when it came down to it, but in the end, that was all a lie.

Miguel Chavez was fake and he knew it.

Rolling back his head in the chair, he looked around the kitchen. It looked like it tacky, retro wallpaper was peeling and the bottom of the refrigerator was a virtual cesspool for ants. The fluorescent lighting was manageable to say the least, but it gave Miguel the cold feeling like he was sitting in a cave. Sitting in the chair beside the table, he gently carved his switchblade into the corner of the chair, gently taking a notch down from his stress each time. The switchblade was golden – the initials M.C carved into it – but as far as Miguel's friends were concerned, he had stolen it. Enrique and David had never really been the brightest bulbs in the tree, and if anything, this was what hurt Miguel the most. _Hijo de puta, you take advantage of them…_

He looked around the kitchen for his moment, glancing anxiously at the people he loosely called his friends; the people that he'd knowingly lied to for years. Their crew was pretty big back at Spanish Rivers, but by a random stroke of bad luck, there'd only be three of them sent into the game. Overweight and ugly like a pit bull, Enrique Martinez (Boy #12) was sitting on the kitchen counter and swinging his assigned bolt cutters absent-mindedly in his hands. Greasy-faced like he'd been dipped in oil with a vulgar sense of humor, Enrique – nicknamed, "Reiki" – was the little brother of the gang more or less. He was the same age as the rest of them, but his tendency to get into trouble always reminded Miguel of the wacky next door neighbors they had in those unfunny sitcoms; the ones that always pulled the main characters into plot devices that drove the episodes. _And you're always the one that's gotta fish him out. The poor little guy…_

And then there was David Rodriguez (Boy #14), and if there was anyone that Miguel had been elated to see upon awakening in the classroom, Dave was definitely the man.

Leaning against the stove beside the table, David Rodriguez (Boy #14) played with his cheap pocket video game. He wasn't concentrating on his score though – his fingers trembling on the plastic buttons of that fucking toy. Unlike Miguel, who was muscular and nearly bald, David was tall and had a great deal of black, wavy hair that felt down his face in bouncy-looking looks. The hair was always hidden by his old and tattered baseball cap. While most students in Spanish Rivers wore sports logos or the school logo on their caps, David's differed; his logo was a crude cartoon of a middle finger flipping somebody off. He was a good guy – probably even Miguel's best friend on a good day – but there were still some flaws that couldn't help but come up now and then. Even though he was thin and never really athletic outside of soccer, David was known school wide for his unnerving willingness to fight. This was strange, because all in all, David was probably one of the most calm people that Miguel knew. Sensitive like a little puppy that had been kicked around in a crowd of strangers, he even got teary-eyed while watching war videos in history class. David didn't fight for power or reputation, and that was just something that nobody seemed to understand. David Rodriguez fought because he didn't know what else to do with himself.

"_Then again, neither do you",_ Miguel thought bitterly.

And that was when Enrique finally spoke:

"We should go outside".

Sitting on the kitchen counter, he said these words loud and clear without any intention of backing down. His arms were folded into his chest – probably trying to mimic the pose of some archetypal rapper he'd seen on TV – but it was very obvious that behind his tough demeanor, he was terrified. They all were; it was just that nobody wanted to be the first one to say it..

Not taking his eyes away from his video game, David Rodriguez raised his eyebrow and pointed to the middle finger on his hat. "Come back with your stomach cut open and watch how fast we care, Reiki".

Enrique rolled his eyes. "You guys are all talk and no action. Buncha pussies if you ask me. C'mon, Miguel. You always said you wanted to kick ass. I always kind of thought this would be something you'd live for. All those stuck-up rich kids. Doncha wanna team em' a lesson?"

Miguel bit his lip as he heard Enrique's words and then struggled to force an awkward smile onto his face. It was irony at its finest. In all respects, Miguel _was_ a rich brat, and Enrique and David had absolutely no knowledge of that at all. In fact, they were sure there tough and hardened leader had grown up on the streets of L.A like he had always said. Looking back at the mistake of saying this, Miguel wondered why he had even done it. _You said it because you wanted them to like you, that's it. It's not your fault. It just kind of spiraled out of control…_

But it was still his fault and he knew it.

His parents had raised him to be proud of his heritage. Not just his heritage, but proud of himself in general. They'd always been supportive, and when their son had started slacking off, they'd never yelled at him. They'd just gotten him tutors and given him encouraging pep talks about how he was capable of doing. Miguel hated his parents sometimes but he also hated himself; he hated the fact that Enrique and David now looked up to him as a leader because of that little white lie. _You're not ghetto you prick. Stop trying…_

Sighing inwardly, Miguel finally spoke and said the only thing that made sense. "Shut up, Reiki. Go outside and in two minutes, you're dead. I'm not playing this game. It's fucked up. It's like being put in a maze like a rat. Doesn't that make you feel a little low?"

"How do we know anybody's really playing the game, though?" Enrique asked skeptically. "That exploding sound we heard could have just been someone walking into a Danger Zone by accident! I mean, don't you guys want to take them all on? You always said we would teach them all a lesson, Miguel! You said we'd show em who's boss!"

"Reiki, can you just shut up!" Miguel roared. "I have to think!"

Rolling his eyes, David finally turned off his video game, flashing white light against the collar around his neck. He glared at both of them and stood up to his full, imposing size – a lanky boy who was easily the tallest in their grade.

"Both of you should shut up", David snapped. "First of all Miguel, I think Reiki's right. Even if we shouldn't go out there and go Rambo on everyone, we still need a plan. And Miguel's right too, Reiki. You'll die fighting if you go out there. Is that really what you want?"

"Battle Royale's good", Enrique said angrily. "The TV said all this intellectual shit about how it's helping with population and stuff. All of these other countries are going to pass the law to have it soon too".

"Yeah, that's great", Miguel said with an eye roll. "If everyone was jumping off a bridge would you do it?"

"Depends how high the bridge is", Enrique said thoughtfully. "But I think we should go outside. Think about it, Miguel – you have a machine gun. A fucking machine gun, for Christ's sake! And Dave's got a pistol! We could rule this game! Blow this island sky high, y'know? The three of us could go out and wipe this place clean".

"I know this might seem kind of weird to you", David said solemnly. "But I'm not killing anyone. So shut up".

"Why so serious, Dave?" Enrique said excitedly. "I thought you lived for this kind of shit too. Remember that fight you had with Eddie Dunnerman last Friday? You nailed that fucker right into the ground. Why don' t you do it again?"

"I hate fighting", David said quietly. "I just do it cause I'm scared. This is different".

"Really?" Enrique said, his eyes enlarging. "How is it different?"

There was a sudden silence in the luxurious kitchen of the Krakhoffe Manor. There was a sense of wisdom in the air – almost a sense of philosophy – and for just a minute, Miguel considered things and wondered if there was a difference in matters at all. Dumbfounded, he picked his legs off the kitchen table.

"What are you talking about?" David said finally. "What do you mean by that?'

Enrique grinned slightly, showing his crooked braces. "Miguel always said-

"You're such a suck-up to Miguel!" David snapped

"I'm not finished, _pendejo_", Enrique snapped back. "Miguel always said we'd take on all of those rich brats. They have no idea what it's like fighting for survival. Right, Miguel? We're going to take them all on and win. After that, we'll escape. Why are you being so quiet, Miguel? Don't you think-

Miguel sighed. "I really don't know what to think anymore…"

"Well, I know exactly what to think. I'm taking them all on. Everything you've been saying is finally making sense. It's kill or be killed, and you guys can probally guess which one I'm choosing".

"Enrique", Miguel began. "Think about what you're doing…"

Enrique rolled his eyes again. "Don't worry. I know exactly how to survive out there. It'll be just like you survived in New York for all those years, Miguel".

For a second, Miguel was about to say something. Anything that would tell the truth about how he had become the leader of their tight little gang. However, looking at Enrique's face, he couldn't bring himself to do it. It was so full of acceptance; the kind of acceptance he'd always wanted in the first place. In that face was everything Miguel had ever wanted. _It's the reason you lied in the first place…_

"Do whatever you want, Enrique", Miguel sighed. "I'm…I'm sorry".

"Are you kidding?" David screamed. "He'll die the moment he goes outside!"

However, it was too late. Not wasting a second, Enrique picked up his weapon from the kitchen floor, a pair of bolt cutters, and dashed outside. Normally, Miguel would have urged him to take the pistol or machine gun that David and him had gotten, but it was no use. Enrique had lost himself in blind trust and wild adrenaline – he was now an animal on the prowl. Grinning, Enrique turned back at Miguel one last time:

"You're awesome, man!"

And then, in an instant, Enrique had slid open the screen doors with a creek, hopped off the wooden porch, and vanished down the rickety steps that led down into the manor's backyard. The sound of him stomping echoed for what seemed like half a minute before it vanished into nothingness. For a second, Miguel thought he was going to cry. The moment quickly passed though and a silence even more deafening than before fell over the kitchen; a silence so bad that you could almost hear the ants nibbling away under the fridge. Then, astonished, David finally turned to him furiously and said:

"Do you know what you just did?"

Nodding bitterly, Miguel decided to answer.

"I'm not sure, David, but I think I just played the game. I might have helped Reiki play it too…"

Shaking his head, David Rodriguez (Boy #14) quietly got up and closed the screen door Enrique Martinez (Boy #12) had vanished out of like it was a portal to another world. Then, not even speaking to Miguel, he sat down and turned back on his video game. He adjusted the cap of his hat until it was hiding his face.

In Miguel's head, there were scenarios playing. He could ignore the lie he had brainwashed into them, and in all actuality, they would probably never find out. Then again, in the next three days, Miguel was definitely going to die and he knew it. Didn't they have the right to know that their friend Miguel, otherwise known as M.C, their leader, carver of initials into trees, was a hoax? But if he told them...

_Enrique, David, I lied. I'm not poor. I've never been to L.A. I'm rich. My dad's a fucking business tycoon. How about we have a smoke at Dave's house and call it a day…._

_What would happen? Would David and Enrique gut him right there? What would they do?_

Miguel sighed and reclined back in his chair, fully aware that it was going to be a long three days.

* * *

Unbeknownst to Miguel, he and his gang were not the only legitimate players of the game that were gathered in the sector that made up the Krakhoffe Manor. Slightly off from the tennis court and several feet away from the Olympic swimming pool, there was a small shed. When the Krakhoffes had purchased their estate, their decision on a use for the shed was pretty much treat it like it wasn't there. Filling it with expired medicine, the ancient pool filter, and anything they had no use for, it really didn't have a purpose other than to gather dust and become a sweaty breeding ground for bugs.

However, the Battle Royale had actually proven the shack useful, especially for Lea Passington (Girl #11).

Hidden behind a crate in the corner, she started to shiver. The shack was very warm, but for some reason, she was beginning to feel cold all over. Lea had always associated dawn with the worst parts of life – in those hours between midnight and sunrise, absolutely nothing good happened. There were bad people that came out at those times. Bad people who would have liked nothing more than to snap the small girl in half like a twig. The shortest in their year as well as the entire school, Lea had a knack for hiding in the background, but considering how some out there on the island were searching especially hard, she didn't know if it would be enough to save her. There were bad people in the world. It was a fact.

_Especially what happened to Father Reyes…_

Shaking the thought away, Lea wished for a Bible. It didn't have to be a Bible either. The Torah, the Tipitaka, the Vedas, or even a book on Scientology . Anything that would give her some degree of faith in life after death. Having her own reasons for fearing death, it was clear to her that religions themselves were simply ways to make people feel better about dying. Still, why did that mean she couldn't find something to believe in until the time came? Going from religion to religion, she'd tried desperately to find something that made sense. She'd lost her faith in that bastard God a very long time ago, but sometimes, she prayed to the big man at night after her aunt tucked her into bed with a glass of warm milk. She'd sit down on her mattress and make up names for him. Her favorite so far was the Omnipresent Not-There. It had a nice ring to it, and at least it wasn't completely denouncing her faith.

It was obvious that her ways of life weren't going to get her easily accepted. With a bad taste in clothing (mostly sweaters that she'd hand-knitten with her aunt on warm summer nights), awkward social skills, and an overly freckly face topped in a mess of wet-looking brown hair, she had been a very easy target for bullies all around high school. In her mind sometimes, she made up lists of the people that she considered dead on the inside. _People like J.C Brooke. Nora McClatchey. Amber Prescott. Maria DeCorgliado_. Their cruelty knew no end. One time in seventh grade, they'd even stuffed her into a locker on a Friday afternoon. She'd spent seven hours in there, sweating and fearing of what seemed like possible starvation until a janitor had found her covered in her own perspiration and urine. Her bladder had been full upon the time they'd stuffed her in, and as her aunt said, "when you gotta go you gotta go". They'd made up nams for her after that. Bad ones. _And that's because they're bad people. They're talking in the hallway again. You're walking down in that crowd of people and they're all talking and you just want to go home. You want to sit on the porch and have a nice ice tea with Auntie…_

Lea smiled softly. Auntie Pru had always said that the reason they bullied her was because they were jealous. That was apparently a sin, and although Lea's aunt hadn't lost her faith yet, her niece had just stood there and nodded thoughtfully. God was a pig. Convincing herself that she was better than all of them, Lea became confident in herself to the point of being somewhat of a nit-pick. She was better. She had to be. It was all black-and white. Facts were facts. They were bad and she was good. Who were they to judge her?

_Faith. That's why she needed to find a faith…_

Lea's mind wandered and she thought of all the religions she'd looked into. From Budhism to Sikhism, Lea had studied all of the religious texts like she was an encyclopedia of faith. However, nothing had given her the faith she wanted. Everything seemed to simply boil back down to rotting in the ground for an eternity. So Lea, terrified of dying, simply switched from religion to religion like tossing a coin; so far, however, she didn't believe a single one. Now that she was sitting alone in the small and cramped equipment shed, she could accept the facts: Jesus, Buddha, and all of the other figures she had put her faith into were not real…

Religion was obviously a joke, and Lea had let it consume her wasted life.

She knew one thing for a fact: religion had given her hope through all of it. Sure, she'd never found a single on that she actually believed in, but it kept her confidant in the fact that bad people would get their comeuppance. And without hope, Lea would have had no reason to live. In its own strange way, religion had both helped and destroyed her. It hurt knowing that she was going to die, maybe in this very shack when they found her, never knowing what to actually believe in.

So after departing from the school directly after Jude, Lea had run for all she was worth until she had found this shack next to that bright pink mansion. It seemed inviting enough, and she thought she had made the smart choice by hiding in a dilapidated shack near the back instead of actually going inside the house. For all she knew it might have been a trap. Still, if somebody found her, she was practically dead. In fact, she had been dead on arrival. _Maybe even as bad off as that Kevin. That sound when the wheelchair fell over. God, that sound…_

Ever since the program had first been started, she had become more and more desperate to find a faith. With the horrible lottery of death over her head, the idea of rotting in the ground seemed closer and closer! _Give me a sign, Omnipresent Not-There! Something that makes sense!_

"_I don't want to die_", Lea thought dumbly. "_There's no way they can just take me down like that. I don't want to die not believing in anything. I don't want to be in a coffin in the ground. I want to go to Heaven, or whatever's out there! Please, this whole thing was a mistake! Just send me home! Pl-_

Suddenly, there were two knocks on the shack's door.

"Anybody home?" a mocking voice laughed.

She froze. Almost like an instinct, she picked up her weapon (an iron golf club that had barely fit in the bag) from the musty floor of the shack. Peeking her eyes up to the cobwebbed, bug-smeared windows, she realized a boy was leaning directly against the shack's outer wall: Enrique Martinez. He had just casually knocked on the window - almost like he was talking to himself jokingly - and was now standing against the shed and rummaging into his pocket for what looked like a cigarette. For some reason, Enrique - nicknamed Reiki among his faces - looked confident in himself. _He's a pig. An ugly pig just like God. Just like the rest of them…_

Despite the circumstances, Lea couldn't help but cringe at this idiot. Unlike her, Enrique had lost all of his individuality. He relied completely on Miguel - that nasty thug who had supposedly grown up somewhere in L.A - and looked up to his friend like he was some kind of savior who had walked on water. Now, whenever Miguel bullied her to prove that he was tough, Enrique would follow along without any will of his own. _A puppet just like the rest of them. But please, don't let him see me. Don't let him see me. Don't let-_

Lea perked up suddenly aware of a curious thought. The survival instinct. Should she do it? Wouldn't she be doing society a complete favor by getting rid of this waste of life? After all, he was bad. And bad things needed to happen to bad people, right?

But Lea had vowed not play the Battle Royale from the moment she had awoken. The game was another example of how horrible the world was they lived in was. _A killing game_. It was uncivilized, unholy, and most of all, it was like dancing on people's graves. Lea may not have liked a lot of people, but giving them the same fate that she was so terrified of herself just wasn't right.

"_Mierda!" _Enrique suddenly cried.

Before Lea even had a chance to decide whether to eliminate Enrique from the game, he had obviously seen her poking out from the window like a prairie dog. Almost instantly Enrique picked up something long, silver, and welded from the ground: a pair of bolt cutters. Terrified out of her mind, Lea shrieked in horror with her golf club as Enrique smashed the bolt cutters into the window.

_CRACK! SHA-KLANG!_

Almost instantly, the old cobwebs fell apart as the glass shattered to bits as scrapings of ancient glass clattered through the shed. Lea's face was cut by a single pan of it, slicing a red line across her frail cheek. Roaring in fury, Enrique, built like a pit bull, almost sailed through the window of the shack. He dug his hands into the frame, cutting them into the glass, and forced his shins through until he was standing up there. And he was. He was her nightime visitor, standing in the window, having arrived to bring death to her little sanctuary. With glass still falling from the window frame like icing sugar, Enrique forced his way through and hopped down to the floor of the shack. He held his bolt cutters menacingly into the air, almost like a baseball bat.

"How long have you been here?" Enrique roared.

She stared with wide eyes. "I don't know…"

"_No me jodas_!" Enrique snapped. "How long have you been here bitch?!"

"Where'd you come from, Enrique?" Lea squealed. "Why are you doing this to me?"

He smirked. "Came from the house. We were hiding out there. Others didn't want to come but I knew better".

Then he swung the bolt cutters. There was a sound of wind like a coffin lid slamming shut. Lea screamed and flung herself backwards into the corner of the shed, narrowly avoiding a blow that would have shattered her nose in one stroke. Sawdust flew everywhere like misty wind at a beach. Shaking like a frightened mouse, she backed into the corner and thought about summer days with her aunt drinking ice tea. Then she closed her eyes and started to cry. Those times were gone now and they weren't going to come back. Cowering in fear, Lea's hand tightened on her golf club. _End it. Fight back. You got to end it…_

She opened one eye and felt her heart skip a beat when she saw Enrique walking toward her. He was shimmying around the pool filter and having trouble getting across the tight shed because of his chubby size, but he was still coming.

"Miguel always said we'd take you all out one day", Enrique continued, licking his lips almost like she was a treat. "Show you who's in charge!"

"I didn't do anything!" Lea wailed

"_SHUT UP_!"

Enrique had completely lost his individuality to Miguel; he valued him even more than he valued his own life. However, Lea couldn't think about that right now; all she could see was a pair of bolt cutters that, if done right, could smash her head to a bloody pulp.

"_Become an animal_", the voice said in her head. "_Defend yourself_"

"Gonna' give you what you deserve, _puta_", Enrique butt in. "Gonna' give you what you deserve real good! I'm going to give you what Miguel's been wanting for a long time!"

And at that moment, Lea Passington made a decision that made the quiet girl who sat under the oak tree in the quad and read the Bible a distant memory.

* * *

_Her aunt's kitchen was clean and polished as always. Appropriately scrubbed and proper just like the aging woman herself, the young girl glanced at her surroundings. Along with it smelling like the inside of a hamster cage, the entire house was full of black-and-white pictures from earlier days when the pilgrims had come over and, in her aunt's words, "rounded up the redskins".. There were several pictures of her parents and uncle around, but then again, neither were around anymore. Her uncle had broken his neck on a mechanical bull at the state fair and died soon afterwards and her parents weren't particulary envolved with her welfare anymore. That was fine though, because by her aunt's logic, you didn't need parents; all you needed was the man in the picture above the dining table. A large portrait of Jesus overlooked the small, chipped table in the corner where they prayed and ate their meals. However, today wasn't a day to pray at all - in a way it was, but in terms of humanity, it was one of the darkest days of Lea's life._

_Still, seven-year old Lea wasn't aware of any of this. She was a perpetually frightened-looking girl with brown hair worn in pretty curls, holding a teddy bear with a bow tie in her hand. She sucked on her thumb thoughtfully - a habit that she'd never really grew out of - and watched her aunt work. The kitchen was full of steam from the boiling water and she wondered with fascination how she wasn't burning her hands._

"_What if heaven isn't real, Auntie Pru?" Lea Passington asked._

_She spoke them clearly and loudly through the door of the kitchen. Auntie Pru was splashing water about with her brittle fingers, and the warm soapy water was leaking over the counter like a storm. She scrubbed harder on the dish tray, almost to the point where she was trying to break right through it. The wrinkly woman's lips pursed, but she didn't seem angry; if anything, she just seemed troubled._

_Her nose wrinkled. "What did you say, dear?"_

_Trembling, and silently asking herself why she'd asked the question in the first place, Lea didn't break her glance with her aunt. This time, however, she stuttered. "What if heaven isn't r-r-r-real?"_

_Whistling a bouncy tune, Auntie Pru turned up the water faucet, causing the already boiling water to steam and bubble like a candle factory. Mist rose from the sudden temperature change and for just a second, Lea swore she saw her aunt smile demonically. In the corner of the room, Jesus continued to smile down at them from the portrait like nothing was happening. Looking back at it, Lea realized that this may have been the time she grew resentful of the man in the picture. The time she began to refer to his father as the Omnipresent Not-There._

"_Why, where would you get a silly idea like that?" Auntie Pru asked sweetly._

"_I don't know, Auntie. It just doesn't make any sense! I mean, I don't think people have any way of knowing if it's real. What if it's just made-up? After all, it could just be all made-up to scare people into doing what's right. How should we know what to believe in?"_

"_Honey, God's given us so much. We should be thankful and not question him. Maybe you should lead the prayer at dinner tonight. It would do you good"._

"_But I can't help it!" Lea wailed. "He might not even be real! I'm so sorry! I just can't help it! And I've been scared ever since what happened to Father Re-_

"_We said we wouldn't talk about what happened to Father Reyes, Lea. He's with God now and you should be damn grateful for it"._

"_I don't want to forget about him", Lea said. "He was my friend"._

"_God is your friend, Lea. He's provided you with a beautiful home, a beautiful body, a beautiful life, and now you have the nerve to question him. That's arrogant, rude, and uttery disrespectful for a girl your age and it only leads to bad thoughts. You do know that, don't you?"_

"_I know, Auntie! I know!'_

_She was crying now. Tears trickled down her cheeks and she held her teddy bear tightly, almost frightened that one loose grip on it would leave her frozen in this story with her aunt forever. The kitchen had never looked more intimidating; she'd never been so scared in her short life. The water was boiling into white froth now, and Lea could hardly see Auntie Pru's face in the hot and humid mist rising from the sink. Seeing her aunt's eyes begin to water, she stepped forward cautiously._

"_Auntie? Are you okay?'_

"_Come over here, Lea", she began. "I want to play a game with you"._

_At six, hardly knowing any better, Lea wobbled forward with her teddy bear still clutched tightly in her little arms. Even as a child, she was very short and scrawny for her age; she couldn't have been much taller than a pre-schooler. Standing in front of Auntie Pru, watching the hot cloud blow around her face like an omen, Lea worriedly glanced up. The kitchen was meticulously clean, and if anything, this was what frightened Lea of her aunt's house more than anything else. It had an otherwordly feel to it - the feeling of uncanny order was almost a deadly one._

_And at that moment, she saw exactly why:_

"_Auntie Pru?"_

_It all happened so fast. __Without warning, Lea's teddy bear was ripped from her hands by her aunt. A tear formed on the bear's left arm and cotton fluff fell through the air like foam. Then, her eyes glowing and her polished fingernails shimmering with light, her aunt did something that frightened her for years. Raising the stuffed animal into the air, she dipped into the scalding waters of the sink. It boiled for a moment in the intense and boiling tide before the threads disjoined in the fabric; the entire bear fell apart like a sizzling onion. Its black-marble eyes floated there like raisins._

_Lea's eyes opened wide, finally seeing what she had done was very wrong. "No! I'm sorry! Heaven's real! Heaven's real! Heaven's real!_

_Scowling with her pursed lips, Auntie Pru snatched Lea's hand and dragged her like a screaming rag doll onto the counter. She protested the whole time, but it made no difference. Her aunt was bony and brittle - almost like a twig - but she was nearing sixty while Lea was simply a fragile six-year old girl. The odds were against her. Her aunt planted her on the counter like she was a toddler whose shoe she was about to tie. Then she cupped Lea's hands together and locked eyes with her. Her eyes were slanted and distant, almost like that of a cat._

_"You've lost your faith", she began. "Let Jesus forgive you. Repeat after me, Lea. Heaven is real"._

_Suddenly, a horrible and agonizing pain lurched up through Lea's arms as her hands were dunked into the scalding waters. The moment they vanished in the soapy suds, she felt like sharp needles were poking in through every pore, lighting fire from within her skin. It was horrible. She wanted to cry, but she ended up choking on her tears instead. She howled in agony._

"_Heaven is real", Lea croaked._

"_Keep going…"_

"_Heaven is real!"_

"_HEAVEN IS REAL!'_

"_HEAVEN IS REAL!'_

"_HEAVEN IS REAL!"_

_Auntie Pru merely nodded before dunking Lea's hands back into the water again. Even years later, when surgery finally corrected the burn marks, the motor skills in her left hand had never fully returned._

_And in that picture above the table, Jesus kept watching._

* * *

With a swift motion, Enrique sent the bolt cutters down with a slicing sound in the air like a professional sports star. Almost instantly, Lea snatched up her golf club and deflected the blow with a metallic clank. It all happened over the span of a few seconds, but in that small amount of time, Lea had made her decision. Her opponet backed into the pool filter and nearly fell over, sending dust everywhere as he fell to the ground in a rumpled heap from the impact. He got up quickly, scurrying to his knees and still loosely clutching his weapon. Clearly taken aback and hardly on steady ground anymore, Enrique stumbled as he got up and dropped the bolt cutters onto his feet; it didn't help that he was wearing sandals and the sharp part came down on his foot.

"ERGHHHH!"

There was an ear-piercing sound like a fruit being gutted as the blade came down on Enrique's foot. Even in the dim light of the shack, Lea was clearly able to see bone and cartiledge peeking through with blood pouring out like a major vein had been hit. Lea's views on human anatomy were jaded, but it was clear that what he had done to himself was a killing blow. _He's not going to live much longer at this rate and that's good. It's a good thing that this happened to him..._

Howling in pain as he limped on his bloody foot, Enrique stared blankly at Lea in an obscure Mexican standoff. Crumpled on the ground, his teary eyes enlarged. His mouth open and no words came out as he stared up at the girl who he had assumed would be easy prey for the island's first eager predator. Then he opened his mouth and said:

"What the hell?"

And so it was time. Lea Passington had finally snapped; she was tired. Tired of bad people, tired of their corrupted country, tired of the world, and tired of never knowing what to do other than sitting down and reading the lies of Jesus for comfort. She was going to die, but still, there was always that miniscule chance of survival. _Finish them all off. Every last one. Go home._

She swung the golf club into the air but somehow missed Enrique, giving him enough time to go flying backwards. That small falter was what saved his life. He was able to dash out of the shed with his foot dragging into the grass, howling out in terror like a wild hyena. The door swayed as he dashed out, nearly flying off his hinges as he ran and left a trail of blood streaming across the ground. Not wasting a second to let him escape back to his leader Miguel who was presumably just inside the manor, Lea grabbed Enrique's bolt cutters, quickly shoved them into her bag in a tight fit, and took off after him with the golf club in her hands. _Good to go._

She dashed outside and bathed in the fresh morning sunlight. Like so many things in her life over that short span of time in the shed, the sun had finally made itself known. It blared over the island like a scorching orange ball, causing the hair on the back of her neck to wetten up and begin to lather with sweat. The backyard was big with lots of places to hide. There was a hedge maze in the corner - that would be the obvious choice - and then there was a even a miniature golf course with red flags blowing in the breeze on top of their respective, numbered holes. Squinting her eyes to that of an agile eagle, she quickly glanced around the enormous backyard for the one who had gotten away.

* * *

Enrique Martinez (Boy #12) felt like he was running across a burning wasteland. His foot was on fire, that was clear, but the world around him had gone hazy and unclear. He tried to make sense of it under that burning morning sun, but it was really no use. He left a bloody footprint with his left foot wherever he walked and he was only vaguely aware of the fact that he was dying. He lugged his overweight body past the swimming pool, feeling his insides quiver and shake at every step.

_"Bones",_ the boy they called Reiki thought numbly. _"Can't even feel em. Hijo de puta.."._

Thoughts spun around in his head, blending together. He squinted under those burning sun rays and tried to drag his feet like he was walking across a hot griddle. It couldn't be over. He was supposed to dominate. He was supposed to be the cool guy for once - the guy who went out and got things done.

_Where's Miguel? Miguel will make everything better. The sun's bad. Too hot. Blood. You can still get some blood on the ground. You're not a pussy. Miguel will come along soon and make it right. He always does. Smart guy that fucker is. World's gone. More blood. It hurts. It hurt-_

That was when he got the first blow.

* * *

By the time she got outside into he sunlight, Enrique was screaming and limping in terror and pain of his bleeding foot beside the Olympic swimming pool. The blood was leaking out of his foot and churning down the pool's edge into the water, slowly turning it a sickly mist of reddish chlorinated mist. He looked like he was made of liquid plastic, melting and slowly deteriorating under that harsh tropical sun. Shrieking, Lea dashed after him as she repeated the words to herself: _Killhimkillhimkillhim…_

Even though Enrique was taller than Lea, her feet were not bleeding and severed. In merely five seconds, she had caught up to him and struggled to swipe him hard with the golf club. With the first blow, she missed and nearly dropped them on the wet and slippery concrete beside the pool. She regained her balance quickly though and kept running, never taking her eyes off the back of his head. She ran in the trail of Enrique's bloody footprints, keeping up with him easily.

Lea swung a second time. This was a direct hit.

The golf club hit Enrique so hard in the back that there was a cracking sound, followed by bluish skin that broke through easily and exposed bloody vertebrae and bone. His head fell backwards and he howled into the sky, but somehow, he kept running. Maybe he would keep running even when he was dead. _Spinal cord_? _That's his spinal cord, right?_ Even though he was now sobbing out pure agony, Enrique chugged along at a slug-like pace, his tongue slurring out of his mouth and spitting up the white pearls of his teeth in red drips. Lea was amazed. _He gets the big picture. He's devoted to stay alive._

"_Miguel_!" Enrique screamed. "_Help me Miguel! David! Miguel! Help! It hurts! The little white chick! She's after me-_

Neck muscle and yellowed fluid in Enrique's neck became dislodged from his spine as he ran, falling apart at every step like a human body exhibit. They were approaching the miniature golf course now, paved in artificial grass, plastic spinning windmills, and obstacles. Hopping over hole one and jumping onto the curb of hole two beside the wood chips, Enrique continued to flee. However, it was more like a slow and thoughtless jog now. His spine was clearly exposed, throbbing inward and out with every breathe.

"Miguel!" he moaned again. "Miguel!"

Unable to walk or move any farther, Enrique finally fell down hard, howling in pain as his spine bent with a cracking sound on the ground. He rolled over like a beached whale and stared up dimly at the sun, only vaguely aware that Lea was slowly approaching him. Slowing down her jog to a brisk walk as she neared him, she swung her golf club loosely at her side. Her walk was casual - almost proud - and she didn't even see it as a walk. If anything, it was a _stride._ She stared down at the body that seemed to what looked like a vegetative state; his fingers were twitching and his eyes dilating. The body glanced up at her with its stupid eyes, either begging for her to end it all or just testing out if it could see at all anymore.

Instead, Lea found herself talking to him.

"You're a bad person!" Lea screamed down at him, not even sure of what she was saying. "You suck-up to other people because you don't have any individuality left for yourself. You're a hopeless mess, Enrique! I hate the way you bully me! I hate the way you and your gang think you can do whatever you want! I hate the way you walk over everyone! _I hate everyone like you!" _

And with that, Lea whacked the blunt end of the golf club hard into Enrique's head, hearing a satisfying crack of shattering bone that officially took him out of the Battle Royale. His head almost swayed lopsidedly for a second before the clean sound of twisting collarbone echoed through the air. His nose had been completely crushed in, and his entire face looked concave and off-center like a broken peanut. For a second, Enrique looked like he was about to blink, but he didn't; that was what told her the truth of what she had done.

Enrique Martinez (Boy #12), Reiki to his friends, was dead in the middle of the Krakhoffe Manor miniature golf course.

The artificial green grass was now stained with the fresh blood leaking out of Enrique's spewn-open head. Grayish pink brains were lying in a heap around him like a pinata. Shaking in fury, it took Lea several seconds to register exactly what she had commited: murder. Even when she said it, it didn't seem like such a horrible crime now. Sure, if the person was innocent, Lea knew she would have obviously committed it. However, what if the person was already dead on the inside like Enrique? After all, she knew for a fact now that God was not real: like she had said to herself many times, religion was merely a joke….

Whistling an old tune and trying to soothe her fear, Lea Passington (Girl #11) walked quietly to the side over Enrique's body. From the Krakhoffe Manor, she could hear boys shouting from inside the manor, and suddenly, horrified screaming and the sound of feet running down steps. Obviously, Enrique's beloved leader Miguel had finally looked out the window. Not wasting a second, Lea fastened the straps of her slightly heavier backpack and took off on her clear path to victory.

It was just like the plants in Auntie Pru's garden. Some plants were still healthy and strong, but some of the other plants' roots had been torn from the dirt; they were simply weeds in the grounds. All Lea had to do now was finish off the plants that were already dead on the inside: the weeds. There were many weeds in Spanish Rivers High. _The world doesn't grow after all; it rots._ Her aunt had claimed she was better than all of them. She would simply kill all of the dead weeds that had tormented her for so long.

And maybe, just maybe, she would find a religion that made sense along the way.

* * *

"Where do you want the spare shovels we found in the shed, Peter?"

Peter Juntz (Boy #9) turned away from staring at the school to face Tristan Igolovosky (Boy #8).

The first thing he had needed to know for certain before he put their escape plan into motion was the collar. He needed to examine one as closely as he could. Travis was completely unwilling to let Peter experiment with his collar, but Tristan on the other hand had practically thrown himself down like a guinea pig. Travis, convinced that his video gaming skills had prepared him for the Battle Royale, was still claiming that he, "wanted to blow everyone on the island sky high". Every few seconds, he would glare at them look wistfully out towards the forest.

"_So Tristan trusts you_", he thought. "_And Travis wants to ditch us, get the hell out of here, and kill people. Go figure"._

Fingering with the metal collar, being meticulously careful not to pull too hard and blow his friend to pieces, he'd let the cogs and gears of his mind begin to work. The collars were carefully crafted, probably made of titanium, and were padded on the inside so they could be, "comfortable", for the wearer. There were scorch marks on the back side of it, showing they had all probably been welded together on their necks when the sleeping gas still had them incapacitated.

However, the metal dogtags that had been tightened around their necks had definitely helped more than he could have dreamed. He now knew three things for certain:

1. True to Burke's words, the collars worked by transmitting radio waves from inside the school.

2. True to Burke's words, there were in fact microphones built into them monitoring their every word.

3. He had found several loopholes in Burke's words.

Radio waves, although able to pass through practically anything, were blockable by easy means. If he stripped the metal from the equipment shed beside them, he would have a chance of bypassing the waves. Sure, the waves could slip through any nook and cranny, but he would definitely have more than a good chance. The next part required tedious labor. The equipment shed was filled with chlorine that were contained in iron barrels. This had seemed too good to be true at first, but willing to take things for granted. Rolling them out along with the shovels that had been bolted to the wall on iron handles, Peter had specified to the twins exactly what he needed: two holes. _Fill em with chlorine._ _Tighten metal from the shed around your collar so no signals can get to it. Make a dirt path leading into the school in a giant mound like a big walkway. Gotta make the path. Just the metal around my collar isn't going to do much. Need to disrupt the signal even more. Tie a rope to your collar. Light it with chlorine. Run toward the schoo-_

"Peter?"

Peter blinked. "Huh?"

Tristan raised an eyebrow. "The shovels?"

"Oh". Taken back to reality, Peter nodded. "Just lean them against the shed for now"

As Tristan propped the shovels they had found in the shed upright against it, his brother scowled at Peter from the ground. Travis's hair was sweaty and his hands were folded over his looked slightly uneasy, but still, that permanent scowl was on his face.

"Burke keeps looking at us from the window".

Peter shrugged. "Let him. It's against the rules of the competition to mess around with anything the students are doing. I think I read it in an article once".

Travis rolled his eyes. "What? Do you watch this shit on TV like every other hardworking American?"

"My family does", Peter said. "All in all, it's just like another game show to a lot of people. Y'know, they give them the whole package – sex and violence. Big television extravaganza. It wasn't even the Battle Royale until a few years back. It was just a low-profile government law that profited off rich fucks bidding on children dying. Then they televised it in the 80's and it sort of just took off from there".

Tristan stared. "How do you know all of this?"

"I like reading", Peter said. "Makes you think. I go through a lot of magazines and stuff".

"Speaking of thinking", Travis said. "Have you come up with a plan that doesn't involve of us getting killed yet or are we still inclined to turn you into a human bomb?"

Tristan clenched his fist. "Shut up, Travis. Peter knows exactly what's he talking about".

"No, Tristan", Travis retorted. "I won't stop talking! I won't stop talking about this fucking suicide mission that he dreamed up!"

"_I said don't talk about it, Travis!" _Tristan roared.

Almost in an instant, Travis went flying at his brother's chest, sending him directly to the ground. Tristan landed roughly, but that didn't stop him; he was much more athletic than his twin who's only physical workout was pressing keys on the computer. Tristan fought back and punched his brother hard in the jaw, sending a sputter of blood instantly leaking out from his nose in an uppercut. Trying to remember how many times the two had fought before, Peter watched as his two friends wrestled all over the ground beside the shed.

_Wait…_

The moment he realized what would happen, Peter bent down and let his long and red nails instantly dug deep into Travis's arm to the point of drawing blood, causing him to howl in pain. Tristan rolled away in a balled-up position like a fetus as Travis struggled to stand up. When he did, he furiously made a grab for Peter's throat, but due to how uncoordinated being inside everyday had left him, he missed and fell flat on his ass.

"What's your problem, Peter?" Travis roared.

"Maybe the fact that you guys were wrestling on the ground right next to the school. In case you don't remember, it's a Danger Zone. Both of your heads would have been blown off if I didn't do something!"

For a second, it looked like Travis, always being a smart aleck who thought he was destined for greater things than everyone else, was going to talk back. However, glancing down at his collar, he merely shrugged sheepishly and walked back toward the side of the shed. Tristan finally managed to steady himself up and flashed a smile at Peter.

"Thanks man".

Peter shrugged and returned the smile. "All I did was save your life. No big deal. I mean, you're easily replaceable".

Tristan grinned. "Yeah, yeah whatever. Nice make-up by the way, bro".

Steadying himself up from the ground, Tristan suddenly grew serious. His freckly ginger face - usually as friendly and charismatic as a high school athlete's should have been - now looked worried.

"Why do you have to do this, Pete?"

"I've spent my entire life doing stuff like this, Tristan. I've even tried to completely switch my life around by dressing up like this; in the end, it's just ignoring this. Nothing really works. It's not that I don't care – it's just that I don't see the point in living if it's a world like this".

Tristan bit his lip. "You don't have to die. If you want glory, come escape with us. Everyone who hates this game is going to see you as a hero, even if you're going to be a refugee for it. It's just not worth it. I mean, I can't even believe that you're serious about this".

"I don't want glory. As long as one person remembers me, I'm fine. Besides, I'm not dying. I'm just trying to figure something out."

"Yeah!" Tristan replied, rolling his eyes in sarcasm. "Figure something out _by_ dying! Look man, we can come up with another plan. It doesn't have to be this way. We don't have to do a suicide mission against the school. There's tons of other ways to escape".

"You know there's not. This is the quickest way and it's the first way I thought up. Give me another plan and I'll gladly see into it. Besides, once I blow up the school, everyone else is free. You can all go home. And no! You're not going out with me! I have to do this by myself!"

For several seconds, the two friends merely stared at each other, both of them lost for words. If Peter still had his chalk, he would have continued drawing his picture on the shed; his own way of avoiding his problems. However, he knew it would do nothing. At least not his time.

With a sigh, Tristan reluctantly smiled. "Let's go over the plan again".

"We'll dig a pit and fill it with the chlorine over there behind the school shed. After that, we take all of the dirt left over from the pit and use the shovels to make a pathway over the Danger Zone. If we put enough dirt, and I mean a lot of _dirt_, the dirt will mess up the radio signal that our collars are showing them and our collars probally won't blow up. We'll have to put metal from the shed around my collar too to mess up the radio signals. Think of it as walking on a staircase, and the moment you get off, you're history".

"How do you know the dirt will work?" a familiar voice suddenly snapped.

Tristan and Peter both turned to see that Travis had returned from the side of the shed, apparently not even caring of the fact that Peter had just saved his life. There was a red gash across his face, presumably from when his brother had pounded him into the ground.

Still not showing any thankfulness for Peter, Travis sneered. "How do you know the moment you step toward the school, they'll just blow your collar up? How do you know they won't blow _our_ collars up too?"

"I don't know, man", Peter said with a shrug. "But that doesn't matter; our collars aren't blowing up anyway. We'll tie a rope and leave the loose strand of it in the chlorine pit. We'll tie the other end to my collar and I'll walk over the dirt. It's pretty funny. They cut all of the rope on the island. It's almost like they knew we would have this kind of idea. Even if you tie all the rope you can find together, it'll be an inch away from the school. Anyway, just drop a match into the pit and it'll travel down the rope and reach my collar. It'll burst into flames, and it'll explode too. It'll be a huge explosion, and if I'm right, it will blow up the entire school".

He felt like adding, "and me", to the last sentence but it felt sadistic and anti-climactic. Luckily, his plan was again punctuated by a sigh from Tristan. His face glancing up at Peter, he could plaintively see there were tears in his eyes.

"You're one of my best friends, Peter. Travis the coward here will never admit it, but you're his best friend, too. You're the only person that would be willing to listen to everyone on the island…".

It was very awkward seeing someone like Tristan, muscled and athletic, suddenly at the verge of tears. Feeling uneasy, he smiled warily and stared at the ground away from the twins.

"Yes, it does. Can you guys do me a favor and start shaping out the border of the hole?"

As Peter watched Tristan and Travis both slowly shamble off to dig the pit that would soon be his grave, he glanced up again at the morning sun. The burning ways shone softly, almost like innocent voices accusing him of abandoning his friends.

He'd started cross-dressing roughly upon entrance into seventh grade. Popular and well-respected before, a lot of his classmates had rolled to the floor laughing when he'd walked into school with a skirt, thinking he had lost a bet or was just trying to be funny. Still, when a week had passed with Peter coming to school with a blonde wig and eyeliner, the facts were facts that he was satisfied with how he presented himself now. While some people respected him for making the decision (the Gay-Straight Alliance club treated him like a hero) others – the more homophobic population of the school for that matter - were not as lenient. His house was vandalized every year on Halloween by the football team (he was relatively sure of this by the way they bragged about it the next day). Still, even through all of that, he had just kept smiling and shaking it off. He'd changed who he was, and if they couldn't respect that, they could just leave it alone. In time, seeing that he didn't seem to care when he was taunted, the pranks and harassment had gradually slowed to nothing.

Still, he had gotten used to the gossiping and bullying. The way kids treated him for being a drag queen wasn't what hurt him. It was _why_ he was a drag queen

Peter had always felt like his life was an uncompleted puzzle. He'd always felt out-of-place with the other kids, almost like the piece of a jigsaw puzzle that just wouldn't fit. After all, always vocal when it came to the government, Peter was quick to defy society's rules. If the bigwigs up at the Senate wanted them all to be "normal", he would give them the finger kindly by fitting himself into a dress. Because if there was anything in the world that got on Peter's nerves, it was people wanting him to be normal…

Remembering the cigarettes, Peter considered smoking one. Deciding to wait until later when he really needed, he pulled out bubble gum tightly wrapped in paper and chewed. Their plan would take a day and half to finalize at the most. Digging the pits, maintaining the chlorine, and cutting the ropes would be the roughest labor for the three of them. However, when the time finally came when he was staring at the school, a human bomb as a suicide mission, he would be ready. He would blow the school to pieces even if it meant blowing to pieces with it. After all, maybe dying would actually make him fit in that puzzle.

More than a little nervous, and not able to wait any longer, Peter Juntz (Boy #9) quickly pulled out a cigarette, a lighter, and continued to think.

* * *

_Dead on arrival…_

This was the only way Logan Spruce (Girl #18) could describe how she felt upon entering the program. After all, at nearly two-hundred and sixty pounds of pure fat and barely able to walk without her beefy thighs collapsing in on her, she was hardly cut out for an average life, nonetheless a killing game. They might as well have shot her in the head the moment she woke up in the classroom. Viewing beauty as something inside of you instead of tanning salons and eyeliner, she'd believed firmly that one day she would simply wake up and not be looked at like a sideshow freak when she walked down the hallway and carried that guttural belly with her. _Someday you'll sing; someday you'll fly; someday you'll blossom into a flower. It'll all be good; you'll see._

In Sector D7, the junkyard littered with ruined cars and heaps of garbage, her pudgy eyes of her peered out from the pit of trash bags. The smell was horrible, a mix between rotten eggs and her own sweat, but she was positive it was the best and most secluded hiding spot she could find. Aside from that, it was the only one where her enormous four hundred-pound body would be able to fit. For some reason, the town council of Cuna Cielo had decided to save their money instead of the environment. Instead of simply recycling the garbage of their residents, all of the trashcans were dumped into a large garbage pit. It was cheap, quick, and most of all, disgusting. Downright vile. However, five hours into the competition, Logan hadn't been seen.

_Logan…_

She hated her name. It was a stereotypical name for an overweight girl; it sounded almost like, "lard". This was a shame, because without all of the fat on her face, she actually had decent bone structure; she may have even been comparable to Amber Prescott if she hadn't caught, "it".

Even though her parents never disclosed exactly the kind of disease "it", was, it had caused Logan's glands to intake more fat, in turn causing her to gain weight rapidly like an inflating balloon. Later, as the disease developed, it was discovered that the gland issue had been caused by a tumor in a vital organ in her stomach. Basically, Logan was almost dying as quickly as she was gaining weight. By the time of their "field trip", Logan was positive she was only going to have another year at most to live. Unlike her classmates, who had been on the road to adulthood, Logan had been stopped dead in her tracks with the threat of her tumor killing her. It had been removed, sure - but the disorder was still going on strong and taking a horrendous toll on her body. Breathing had become difficult at times. Her reports to the doctor were almost daily and the diet plans covered her refrigerator like knick-knacks.

Logan's world had collapsed, but she refused to go down with it. It was hard to say if, "dying", was exactly the right word for it, seeing how it wasn't killing her directly, but it definitley wasn't going to lengthen her life span. A heart attack of good dose of cancer in her late twenties seemed likely. That was why she'd started to savor everything, whether it was simply a crack in the sidewalk or somebody laughing; everything suddenly seemed so much more real.

"I like living…" Logan muttered to no one in particular.

It was true. Even though her life had been a complete mess of cruel jokes about obesity and, Logan had grown to admire being alive. A strong Christian who believed in God despite what he may have done to her, she knew that he was looking down on her and wishing her the best life she could get. So she would enjoy the time she had. What was wrong with that?

Once you knew you were going to die though, that was when the world had a whole new meaning. That was why, even if she was in the program, living mattered even more to her now. Living just one more day would mean the world to her. Every day in school, the days when she would have to be sent home due to the pains in her stomach, she would force herself to be grateful she could still feel pain; _she could still feel alive_.

As her heart began to beat faster, she thought of the two students she had seen pass through the junkyard so far. First, Winston had wandered aimlessly through, looking troubled and anxious. By the time Logan managed to stop shaking, he had already run away. However, merely an hour ago, J.C had run into the junkyard, sobbing hysterically and lugging a strangely heavy backpack. Remembering all of the cruel and nasty comments J.C had made about her, Logan had considered jumping out of her sweaty and hot pit of trash bags and making a run for it. However, seeing how J.C looked both terrified and upset, she had simply watched her pass through the junkyard and leave on her own accord.

"I like living…" Logan said this time more forcefully punctured with a loud sob like a blubbery whale.

Rummaging through a slit hole in one of the black trash bags, Logan pulled out her weapon, a machete, with a delicate hissing sound against the soft plastic trash bag. Now that the sun has completely risen over Cuna Cielo, the space in the garbage bags was becoming insufferably hot and sweaty. Logan struggled to shift her weight, along with not cut herself with the machete, but no matter what, she still felt like she was being baked in a plastic oven.

"_Like it, Logan",_ she thought. _"Like being baked. Like feeling baked and sweaty in a pit of fucking garbage bags. Remember and enjoy every feeling. Enjoy living…"_

And she did. Lying in the pit of garbage bags, Logan Spruce savored every second of her dwindling life. However, deep inside, she knew she wasn't feeling happy at all; she hadn't been feeling happy even before she had known of the tumor. Now, part of her wanted to get out and make a point to the bigwigs in the school, but damn, she was scared. In fact, everyone else probably was too. What was anyone to blame her? Kill or be killed. _God, I really am fucked aren't I? I'm a red shirt. DOA'D._

All Logan could ever remember feeling was fat. Now, she just wanted to last as long as she possibly could.

* * *

**Eliminated**

**(Boy #12) Martinez, Enrique**

* * *

**37 Students Remaining**


	8. Day 1: Hour 6: 37 Students Remaining

On the mossy hill in Sector A6, three teenagers lay in the mossy meadow almost like forgotten dolls in a dollhouse. The first one, asleep with tears stained on his face, was moving uncomfortably as the hot sunlight beat down on his back. Although the phrase, "cry yourself to sleep", was generally an expression, after what had happened in the last several hours of the competition, he had been left with no other option.

The other two teenagers were dead.

Stirring, Zane Barrens (Boy #1) was in a daze. For a second, he was positive he was in his bedroom. Any minute, he could simply walk out of his spring-broken bed and be yelled at by his father, who was a police officer. He had lost touch with his family long ago, preferring to spend more time with his friends than his nearly broken family, giving his father more than enough reasons to yell. Even though Zane's life was brutal, anything would be better than the one he had now been thrust into.

_Walking away to get firewood…. Jesse and Skylar talking… they're going to rebel against me…Skylar's eyes bloody from sleeping pills… bodies…J.C and Rory running away…_

It had been such a horrible dream; that was mainly why Zane nearly choked on his tears when he pushed himself up from the ground and saw Jesse's dead face staring at him. Skylar's body was slightly farther away, almost like somebody had kicked him when Zane was sleeping.

"_You fell asleep, asshole_", his mind gibbered at him.

Sniffling up his tears, Zane realized how lucky he was that nobody had hurt him. Better yet, he was lucky that nobody had killed him. He had been asleep for nearly half of the first six hours of the competition.

"Good morning everyone".

Startled, Zane nearly jumped when he heard the voice of Reynold Burke, crackly and metallic like somebody had covered his mouth in aluminum foil. It was coming from some kind of intercom, and if Zane simply knew where it was, he would have mercifully ripped it apart.

"I hope you all had fun this morning. This competition may top the ratings of the last one with the pace that we're going at. Well, probably not. Last year was quite a bit better. Anyway, I want to congratulate all of you. Well, all of you that are still alive, anyway".

Zane's heart skipped a beat. _Well, what if Skylar and Jesse were the only ones who died. It couldn't have been that bad…_

"Well, it's time to announce the dead. For the girls, we have Mae Yamamoto (Girl #20) and Jesse Morgan (Girl #10). For the boys, we have, of course, Kevin Hashburg (Boy #6), followed by Skylar Tierren (Boy #17) and Enrique Martinez (Boy #12). This gives us a total of five dead with thirty-seven of you still alive. I want to congratulate all of you on a job well done. Keep up the good pace. Now, the Danger Zones. At 7:15, we have Sector E6, at 7:45, we have Sector B9, at 8: 35, we have Sector A6, and at 11:30, we have Sector J7".

Zane felt like his head was spinning. He had been anticipating the deaths of Skylar Tierren, Kevin Hashburg, and Jesse Morgan, but Mae and Enrique had died, too? Back at school, he and J.C had often bullied Mae Yamamoto, to the point of nearly causing her to become paranoid. She sat completely still in class like a statue, almost afraid to move in fear that she would do something that would cause people to pick on her. In general, she was a broken mess; but had this had something to do with her death?

Zane had never liked Enrique, otherwise known as Reiki to his friends. He sucked-up to Miguel Chavez like he was some kind of deity, but deep down, Zane knew Enrique simply wanted to be accepted, much like everyone else in the class had. That was why he had been the leader of his group in the first place; he loved power and acceptance. Now, staring at the dead bodies of Jesse Morgan and Skylar Tierren, he realized exactly what his power had done; their deaths were completely his fault.

That was when two names singularly entered his head:

_Rory and J.C!_

In the back of his mind, he saw the swishing black and red hair of J.C vanishing into the forest, followed quickly by Rory. Along with that, J.C had stolen everything: food, flashlights, weapons, and even the maps he needed to mark the new Danger Zones. His own girlfriend had basically sentanced him to death.

"_That bitch_!" Zane roared. Several birds cawed and fluttered out of the trees as Zane's scream echoed across the island.

However, as much as he would tell you otherwise, J.C was one of the few people left on the planet that he cared about. They had hooked up at a party during the summer at a pool party, becoming among the first of the freshmen to lose their virginity, and since then, they had been a pair. It was hard to explain, and it was even harder to understand, but J.C Brooke was his friend. He hated the word, but that was what she was. And Rory. Although he hardly talked, Zane was forced to admit that he wasn't a bad kid. In fact, he had even smuggled Zane a baggie of cocaine that was now, likely never to be used, laying under his mattress at home.

Friendship was one of the few things that could piss Zane off even more than he already was.

"Well, if it isn't Zane Barrens".

Spinning around, Zane's jaw dropped when he locked eyes with Chris Barrister (Boy #2), the quarterback of the Spanish Rivers Sultans. His long blonde hair, which he had refused to cut to play football against the coach's will, gleamed in the sunlight, flashing light from the varsity rings on his finger. He had the face of an ape, but still, that didn't stop Chris from getting around with the girls. Although they were only rumours, it was definite several girls had hooked up with him: Leana...Erin...June...Victoria. There had even been a rumour about Chris and J.C which, although Zane gritted his teeth when he thought about it, was probably true.

Behind Chris, Eddie Dunnerman (Boy #4) stood boldly, cracking his knuckles defensively for the hell of it. His black hair hung in a tattered mess on his greasy head, almost like an old carpet. Besides being a muscled linebacker on the football team, he was a bully; truthfully not that different than Zane himself.

"Nice job finishing off Skylar and Jesse", Eddie noted, not showing any fear as he cocked an eyebrow. "Way to go, man!"

For a second, Zane didn't understand what Eddie meant. Then, his eyes lit up in alarm as he scurried back. It was almost like a merry-go-round that was coming back to hit him full-swing in the ass again.

"No! It's not what you guys think! _They killed themselves! They-_

But what was he kidding. Zane hadn't lain a finger on them, but he was guilty and responsible for their deaths. If he hadn't been so stubborn, they may have felt the need to stay alive. He wasn't quite a murderer, but it was almost like somebody who would steal a life preserver when a boat was sinking. What was it called? Deprived heart murder? That was it; Zane had commited deprived heart murder.

Behind Eddie, the scrawny figure of Preston Tracy (Boy #18) scurried out like a frightened gerbil. He had a long and red face, always looking like he was about to burst into tears. Besides being the tortured mascot and the joke of his "friends", Preston was also desperate to be an athlete; however, his thin and weak bone structure didn't agree with this. When he wasn't being whipped by wet towels in the locker room, he was usually stuck in one of the lockers where the towels were drying.

"C'mon, Chris", Preston urged. "He's probally telling the truth. I mean, look! There's sleeping pills all over the ground! They probally did kill themselves!"

"Probally drugged them", Chris said in an amused voice. "I bet a million dollars that he tricked them both. You heard their names in the announcement, Preston. If that's not proof, I don't know what is".

Preston stared. "What's the proof?"

"What do you think? They're dead, and _he's_ here with em'!"

Before Zane could do anything, Chris Barrister grasped his shirt and heaved him up from the ground. His reeking breath, hot and rancid like rotten eggs, burned Zane's nose. Up close, he looked like an ape more than ever.

"So what about Enrique and Mae, huh?" Chris asked. "Had anything to do with that?"

Zane quickly shook his head fearfully, but he knew it was no use; they didn't care if he killed them or not. Chris and Eddie simply wanted to play the game, while Preston was urging them not to. The situation couldn't have been clearer.

"We could push him off the cliff on top of the hill, Chris", Eddie urged. "Quick and easy removal".

Chris glared. 'I make the decisions here, Eddie. So Zane, do you think you could learn to fly?"

Not even knowing what he was saying, Zane glanced innocently up at the quarterback of the Spanish River Sultans. "Have any of you seen J.C Brooke anywhere?'

"Huh?"

"J.C Brooke. You haven't seen here, right?'

Chris laughed, blowing his reeking breath into Zane's throat. "I didn't see your playgirl whore girlfriend, Zane. Who do you think she hooked up with next, Eddie? Kevin Hashburg?"

Eddie laughed mindlessly. "I bet she came out of the closet just to spend some time with Logan".

Zane's hand tightened into a white and trembling fist, but he struggled not to say anything. In the corner of his eye, he saw something poking out in Eddie Dunnerman's backpack, slanted and pointy. He didn't want to risk that any of them had a decent weapon. There wasn't anything more degrading than dying in the program in the hands of Chris Barrister.

Preston sighed. "Please just leave him alone, Chris!"

Furiously, Chris swung around and punched Preston in the jaw with a rough sound like a slapping wet towel. He yelped as he staggered back limply, but he didn't dare talk back to his leader. Zane cringed, remembering the night of Skylar and the seniors at the movies.

"Don't talk back, Preston", Chris snapped.

Preston's lips were blue and swollen, and something wet and red was starting to leak out of his lips. However, he wasn't talking; he was only sniffling softly as he glanced down at the ground.

"But I'll go with what Preston says", Chris continued, nodding softly at Zane like he was a science experiment. "We'll take him back to camp and interrogate him".

Zane stared silently at the ground. He knew Chris's version of an interrogation was a murder. He was basically been sentenced to his death.

"Wasn't your weapon duct tape, Eddie?" Chris asked.

Eddie shook his head. "That was Preston's. Mine's a tork wrench".

Chris nodded and almost immeadidly, shoved Preston to the ground and yanked his bag aggressively off his back. Quickly unzipping it and pulling out a silver ring of duct tape, Zane listened bitterly as it made a horrible hissing sound as they unrolled a long strip of it.

"If you run", Chris said, calmly. "I'll kill you".

"And if you call J.C a whore", Zane replied, not even looking at Chris. "I'll do worse than kill you".

For a second, the air was still and quiet on the mossy hill; almost as quiet and still as the bodies of Jesse Morgan and Skylar Tierren. However, Chris merely glared and stuck a tight rim of tape around Zane's arms behind his back, strapping him down. After that, another strap was roughly taped around his legs, destroying any chance of escaping. Finally, once last roll of tape went lopsidedly onto his mouth, muting him.

"There? Like being deaf and dumb? This is so you'll shut the hell up", Chris explained. "Eddie, you carry one arm and Preston will carry the other. C'mon, we're going back to camp".

As Eddie and Preston hoisted him up and roughly began to carry him away, Zane started to think about friendship. It was a complicated thing, and the more he thought about it, it made him even angrier than he already was. Jesse had died for Skylar. If she could that, she was his friend, wasn't she? Well, J.C was his _girlfriend_. Instead of standing up for him and understanding the true fate that had befallen their friends, she had stolen any of his hopes of survival and fled. What did that show about friendship?

And the worst part was, Zane still cared about J.C. In fact, he almost liked her even more now.

* * *

In the sparkling sunlight of the beach, Amber Prescott (Girl #13) slowly limped out of the forest. After having the misfortune of being shot with a pistol by Adrienne Spring, she had been rendered into what she had believed to be a catatonic state for nearly an hour. However, after realizing she had merely passed out from the trauma of the wound, she had managed to force herself to stand.

_Adrienne…_

She had never considered Adrienne would do something like this. After all, Amber generally tried to ignore the bubbly girls that had joined her clique; she had never considered that one of them had been trying to rot her clique from the inside out. At school, when her group of girls had followed her down the hallway, judging and criticizing everyone, Amber had simply kept quiet; she didn't want to take credit as the, "leader", of them. Sometimes, her silence became so bad that Adrienne would mentally force her to pick on the unpopular students or as Adrienne always called them, "the outcasts".

It was completely unfair; if God simply gave you good looks, you were automatically popular. Sometimes, Amber wondered what it would be like to be someone like Mae Yamamoto. Would their be any chance of her ruined life being any better? However, there was no time to think about that now. She had heard from he morning announcement when she had managed to wake up from her unconscious state, and Mae Yamamoto (Girl #20) was dead.

Like Adrienne had said, Amber Bee was no longer the queen of the hive.

As Amber limped onto the beach, cringing in pain at the bullet that was still lodged in her skin, she became aware of the shadowy figure of Adrienne enthusiastically talking to Victoria Jenkins (Girl #5) and Erin Thompson (Girl #19). Shyla Ryals (Girl #16), her best friend, was simply loosely on the outside of the group; it looked like she wanted no part in their conversation at all. Victoria's eyes were wide and still, listening closely, while Erin was staring at the ground. Whatever was going on, something was obviously up.

Before she even limped her way back toward the girls, Adrienne had already locked eyes with her. Motioning for Victoria and Erin to follow her, the three girls marched like soldiers to her. With a frightened and concerned look on her face, Shyla quickly followed after.

Amber stared. _What was going on?_

Still chewing her bubble gum, Adrienne Spring (Girl #17) smiled demonically. For just a split second in time, an animal seemed to be calling in Amber. It was almost like her mind was resorting back to its most primal instincts. Anger led to violence. Was she fantasizing about killing Adrienne?

Shaking the thought out of her head, Amber angrily glared at the three girls around her. "I guess you didn't tell them what happened, huh, Adrienne?"

Victoria Jenkins's dark face suddenly seemed pale in the morning sun. "Oh, Adrienne told us everything".

Victoria spoke these words with a deranged and disturbed grin on her face. It almost seemed out-of-character; Victoria was a Girl Scout who was as tasteless and simply good-natured as distilled water. It was almost to the point of being disturbing. Whatever Adrienne had said to her had seemed to have turned her into a completely different person.

"Adrienne shot me!" Amber shrieked, not knowing anything else to say. "She shot my _fucking_ leg!"

Erin was staring blankly at the ground, almost like she was thinking too much to talk to Amber. "I'm sure she did, Amber. I'm sure she did".

Shaking her head, Adrienne rolled back her head and chuckled softly with her big and rosy lips. Her lips curled gently, almost like she was smoking a cigarette instead of chewing loudly on her gum.

"I've talked to everyone", Adrienne explained. "Well, except Shyla over there. We've all decided that we don't trust you very much, Amber. I mean, after what you said to me in the forest, why should we?'

Amber glared. "You said nothing to me, but you did a pretty good job of giving me a bullet in my leg".

Adrienne's jaw dropped open, raising her eyebrow. "Amber what are you talking about? All we talked about was that screwed up plan you had to lure everyone into security, then kill them on the last day. You wanted me to survive too, you know, since we're best friends, but I would rather save Victoria and Erin. Your little friend Shyla over there won't believe me because she would rather be betrayed than escape from this hellhole".

"_That's because it's not true_!" Shyla shrieked. Her chubby face was shaking in anger, and Amber could clearly see tears stains running down her cheeks. "Amber would never do that, right, Amber?"

"No, Shyla, I wouldn't! Adrienne's making it all up! She's insane!"

Anxiously, she spun around to face Victoria and Erin. They were both staring at her, both with a look of terror and amazement on their face. They were almost like mindless leeches. They had latched onto Amber's clique in an effort to be popular, but did they really have any faith in her at all? They had pretended like they were her friends, but obviously, that had all been an act. Would she really be able to convince them?

"Adrienne's not innocent, guys", Amber pleaded. "Please, don't believe anything she says. She's nuts! She's just probally going to get you to finish me off, and after that, she'll put five bullets into both of your skulls".

Victoria was still smiling demonically, her innocent Girl Scout grin completely gone. "Amber, you're _lying_".

Looking at Victoria's face, Amber finally noticed there was no hope. Victoria was completely dead on the inside; the game had driven the once innocent Girl Scout insane. There wasn't anything left of her but a girl whose collar would explode the moment it had the chance. Erin, on the other hand, still seemed unsure…

"Erin", Amber said, as calmly as she could. "You don't believe Adrienne, right?'

Erin, always negative and pessimistic, now looked like there was a positive end on the horizon. She had been a worrywart at school, but now that they were faced with death, Amber saw there was much more to her than that. Past her mess of brown hair and the dark mole on her nose, there was something new in her eyes that Amber had never seen before: hope.

Erin didn't answer.

Instead, she calmly reached to her waist and pulled out something sleek and shiny: Victoria's Colt pistol that Adrienne had shot her in the leg with. It seemed to be the weapon of choice, because it was the only true weapon in their tight group. Amber's weapon, a sledgehammer, had been discarded for being too heavy to carry, Shyla's, a butter knife, was also useless, Erin's, a brick, wasn't decent either, and Adrienne had been given a toothbrush. Only Victoria had lucked out and received a weapon capable of killing. In fact, she had been given a weapon almost capable of a full-blown massacre. It had been dumb luck.

And now, Erin was going to use that luck to end Amber's life.

As her heart beat, she stared at the black hole that would spit out a bullet and end her life. However, had she even lived? All she had ever been was a way for girls to become popular; Amber was almost like a hotline that did anything for others, but nothing for herself.

However, as Erin slowly began to pull the trigger with her hopeful eyes, there was an unpleasant thudding sound that rang through the air. Spinning around, Amber stared at Shyla's empty hand which seconds ago had been holding a brick. At the sandy ground, where their bags were scattered like it was a sleepover, Erin's was unzipped.

"Oh my god!"

Erin moaned in agony as she instantly dropped her gun. Her head was bleeding rather badly, but somehow, she was still managing to stand and keep that look of eventual hope in her eyes. In a flash of movement, Shyla's chubby body dove to the ground and gripped her hands onto the pistol, instantly pointing it to Adrienne's exposed chest

"Are you going to kill me, Shyla?" Adrienne asked, still chewing her gum.

Shyla didn't answer, but merely kept the gun steady and pointed at Adrienne Spring's head. The entire beach was silent, aside from Erin's agonized moaning as she struggled to massage the wound the brick had done to her head.

"Well girls", Adrienne sighed. "I think this shows I was telling the truth. Shyla and Amber are working together to kill us".

Whistling softly as Amber's heart continued to beat, Adrienne casually began to walk down the beach, swinging her hands loosely at her side as she continued to chew her cherry gum. Glancing at Shyla's gun in her shaking and sweating hands, still pointed at Erin, Victoria sighed and picked up Erin's nearly unconscious body from the ground.

"We'll kill you, Amber", she said, her eyes nearly dancing in her head. "If you come near our side of the beach, we'll kill you. You'll try to run, but you won't be able to do anything. We'll kill you, too, Shyla! Because you know what? If we don't, it's going to be us instead of you; life is a game. Now, we're going to win".

And with that, Victoria Jenkins, her mind completely lost from the game, began to drag Erin's rumpled and unconscious body after Adrienne; their new brilliant leader. In the sunlight, Amber's eyes began to water as she watched the three former members of her group silently walk to the other end of the beach; they had basically declared a war that Amber hadn't even agreed with.

With a sigh, she glanced over at her best friend, still holding the trembling pistol in her hand. "You didn't shoot her, huh, Shyla?"

Whimpering, Shyla let the pistol drop to the sandy beach. "I didn't kill her because-

Amber nodded, understanding completely. "You couldn't…"

* * *

At 6:15 AM, a girl with fiery red hair peered out from behind a termite-eaten log in the woods. Her hair, which would have been part of her image as one of the prettiest girls in the class, was a mess of twigs and dirt littering it like a polluted beach. She was the prettiest girl in the class, but after fleeing for live from her crazed boyfriend who had murdered Jesse and Skylar, J.C Brooke (Girl #1) now looked aged and withered like an elderly woman.

After fleeing from Zane, she had somehow wandered into a swampy bog. Even though she continually tried to convince herself it hadn't happened, J.C knew that the worst scenario possible had occurred.

She was alone.

After fleeing from Zane, she had attempted to double back and tried to locate Rory North. However, no matter where she looked in the dense forest, Rory had completely vanished. Even if she had found him, it would have hardly mattered; deep inside, J.C Brooke knew that her stoner friend would be a corpse by the end of the first day. It was almost strange; how could somebody like Zane Barrens or Rory North become a corpse at any moment?

"God damn it", J.C whined, softly to herself. "_God damn it_!"

J.C knocked her fist into the termite-eaten log angrily, knocking it through the mossy and wet bark. All her life, J.C had never felt like she belonged anywhere. She had always hopelessly relied on other people; it didn't help that her parents getting divorced had caused her to be sheltered from home to home, almost like she wasn't wanted anywhere. She had become emotionally supportive on everyone around her. As much as she didn't want to admit it, she was a completely spoiled brat. Along with that, she knew her classmates considered her a whore; besides Zane, she had also dated Mitch Kelley, Chris Barrister, and even Tristan Igolovosky.

"_I'm J.C_", she thought, sarcastically. "_The tough playgirl that uses people. What's your name?"_

Wiping her tears out of her eyes, J.C quietly lay down beside the log like it was a soft forest bed. The seven-o-clock sunlight streamed in through the top of the forest canopy, illuminating the swampy bog into sparkling colors of green and brown. However, J.C took no time to notice this; she was too busy thinking.

Why didn't her classmates like her? After all, she wasn't a bad person or selfish when she thought about her; she just didn't want to waste her energy on stupid things and would rather have Zane do them for her. After all, that didn't seem selfish. Besides, that she was beautiful, even without her exotic dyed hair. Her classmates had no reason to treat her the way they did. After hearing the morning announcement, where she had learned of the deaths of Mae Yamamoto and Enrique Martinez, she had truthfully started to think. Both of them hadn't liked her very much. _Why?_

_Sniffle…_

The whimpering sound came almost several feet away from her, instantly causing her collar to correspond with her rocketing heart beat. Quickly swiping up her Bobcat 21 pistol, her trembling head glanced over the log, almost like a creature with black and red hair poking out of a lagoon.

_Oh, it's just Meyerhold Zemeckis…_

Even though Zane was the one that typically bullied the boys, J.C knew for a fact that she had treated Meyerhold Zemeckis (Boy #21) like a practical joke. In middle school, when the cliques and prejudice among the student body were still forming, Meyerhold had truthfully been talkative. On the first day of school, J.C fondly remembered smirking as he walked in with his cartoon-character lunchbox, covered in stickers. He was different, and obviously, he hadn't grown up yet. He was still an elementary schooler on the inside. So, as to be expected, he had been ripped apart by bullying, gossip, and high school.

Sometimes, J.C didn't consider the bullying she did cruel; it was simply helping her classmates prepare for life.

Partly because of his strange name, which was apparently named after a French philosopher, and partly because of his poor social skills, Meyerhold gradually stopped talking and expressing himself. His cartoon-character lunch box went away first, followed by his third-grade style sweat pants. In merely a month, J.C had completely destroyed Meyerhold. She had been proud, too.

"My mom", Meyerhold would sob continually say to the guidance counselor. "She said I'd make a lot of friends in middle school. _I don't understand_…"

Now, peering over the log, J.C stared blankly as Meyerhold locked his blue eyes with her. His face was long and covered in acne, but his once innocent and youthful expression had become like stone; hard and serious.

Almost uncertain of what do, J.C raised her eyebrow skeptically. "What the hell do you want?"

It happened in an instant. Charging like an angry bull, Meyerhold roared in his high voice and came charging at her, wading through the murky waters of the bog. With a shriek, J.C's heart began pounding quickly as she quickly scurried up; she didn't even have time to grab her backpack full of food and weapons that she had stolen. Along with her pistol that she instantly dropped, bread, water bottles, and Zane's sniper rifle were all in the bag.

"_Help me_!"'

Behind her, J.C managed to see something sharp and rigid in the corner of her eye, gleaming silver light that shone from the forest canopy. _A handsaw_. Meyerhold Zemeckis (Boy #21) was going to kill her with a handsaw.

Quickly turning into a sharp circle, J.C spun around and leaped quickly back over the termite-eaten log. Her legs sunk knee-length into the green and murky bog, but it didn't matter; all that mattered now was getting a way. Her plan repeated in her head like clockwork. _Escape Meyerhold. Find group. Get off island._

"Get back here!" Meyerhold's hoarse voice croaked.

Finally managing to force her way out of the green bog, J.C scurried up onto the wet and moist riverbank. Directly behind her, the metallic clank of a handsaw sliced into her sneakers, but didn't break the sole. Meyerhold was only inches behind her. Even though J.C's experience as a juvenile delinquent and lacrosse player had caused her to be a fairly good runner, she had spent nearly three hours running breathlessly, afraid that Zane would be after her. _She could hardly run another foot._

Digging her fingers into the dirt, J.C tore her muddy sneakers off the river bank and shrieked as she quickly began to dash through the trees like a funhouse maze. Meyerhold swished the handsaw behind her, obviously not giving up for a second. It was amazing that somebody unathletic, like Meyerhold, could push himself like this if his life depended on it.

"I'm sorry!" she shrieked. "I'm so sorry!"

Even though she knew she was lying, J.C hardly cared. Her life was what mattered; not Meyerhold's. In fact, Meyerhold Zemeckis was an insignificant insect and hardly mattered.

Nearly smashing her head into a tree, J.C dashed through the thick and dense forest. Now that she had gotten out of the bag, it was actually much easier to run. The muddy ground had apparently slowed her down back at the swamp. Glancing behind her, she realized Meyerhold was slightly farther behind now.

"_Weak bastard couldn't even run a full lap around the track",_ J.C thought bitterly.

In front of her, the forest seemed slightly edged off; it was almost like the entire world was flat and lifeless in front of her.

"_Just like J.C's heart_", all of her classmates would say.

Shaking the thought of her head, J.C sprinted forward and realized that the entire forest bog suddenly came to a slanted drop; a cliff. In front of her, the raging waters below tossed and turned, almost begging her corpse to swim with them. The moment she touched those waters, and left the island, she knew her collar would explode in a paroxysm of death; the only positive was she wouldn't have to worry about if her classmates liked her anymore.

Breathing hard, she spun around to see Meyerhold Zemeckis advancing at her with his handsaw. His pimply face seemed slightly bloody, almost like he had cut himself on a branch.

"Why does everyone hate me?" J.C shrieked. "What the hell did I do to you, Meyerhold?"

However, she knew it was obvious. Not only had she been a ruthless bully to Meyerhold, but everyone else as well. Why did she bully people? Were there any true reasons why she and Zane were both ruthless bullies?

Meyerhold didn't answer. Instead, advancing at J.C, his face grew angrier and angrier, almost like a raging bull with pimples.

"I'm sorry", J.C shrieked, even though she knew for a fact she was lying again. "Please, don't kill me!"

_This is it…Meyerhold Zemeckis is going to kill me…Why does everyone hate me? I had such a nice group…they were all going to protect me…Why had Zane killed Jesse and Skylar?_

Suddenly, the entire world around J.C Brooke collapsed.

In an instant, her foot slipped on the weedy hill, instantly feeling what felt like cracking debris and wood. Before she had any idea what had happened, she vanished into darkness as wooden splinters and dust stained her eyes. Coughing in her fall, it was instantly broken as she landed roughly. Her arm cracked, and almost instantly, a searing pain went up her arm; _she had broken it._

Cringing as she glanced up, she noticed a square light nearly fifty feet above her. A rope was swaying up toward it, and it took J.C a second to register that she had fallen down a mineshaft.

The searing pain in her arm was so unbearable, J.C almost couldn't get up. However, just somehow, she managed to hoist herself up from the ground with all of her will. The entire mine shaft was completely black, and she couldn't see a foot in front her.

"_If I only had my fucking flashlight…," _J.C thought, bitterly.

Once again, the world in front of her was dark. It was suitable for somebody like J.C Brooke; a world that fit her dark and lonely heart. She was positive that her classmates would say something like this. Maybe somebody as horrible as her would only be accepted in a mineshaft…

Shivering in the cold and dark air, J.C forced herself to close her eyes, whimpering and starting to sob from the pain in her arm.

As J.C struggled to sleep in the dark and cold air of the mineshaft, fifty feet above her, Meyerhold Zemeckis glanced down at her. Ever since middle school started, Meyerhold's life had been flipped upside down. In his old private elementary school, he had had many friends; in fact, he had prayed every night, grateful that he was in his nice private school full of decent and kind students.

However, when his parents had sent him to Spanish Rivers Public Middle School due to financial reasons, Meyerhold hadn't complained. After all, he had been raised all his life in a world where everybody liked him; what could go wrong?

It could have been his cartoon character sneakers or innocent voice, but in an instant, Meyerhold Zemeckis was torn apart by the popularity ladder. It came as a shock to him, brutally ripping apart his mind. He cried himself to sleep every night, almost trying to understand why this was happening.

"They're so mean…", Meyerhold would sob to his mother every night. "_They're so mean…"_

Now, whimpering as he glanced down at the girl that had bullied him mercilessly in a mineshaft, Meyerhold began to cry and ask himself questions.

_Why had he chased J.C Brooke; why had he let his anger consume him?_

_Was he a murderer now, even though J.C had escaped? _

_Why were they so mean?_

And even though he had been asking that last question for years, none of these, "_whys_", were getting Meyerhold anywhere.

* * *

"What's your favorite movie?"

After an hour of walking through the woods, Mitch Kelley (Boy #10) had become aggravated with Terry Klingerman (Girl #6). Even though he obviously wanted to keep to himself, she had continually asked these stupid and pointless questions, almost like it was her way of trying to calm herself down. However, ranging from, "what's your favorite color?" to, "what's your favorite band?", all they had done was make the situation worse and worse. Forcing himself not to roll his eyes, Mitch finally decided to answer.

"Dawn of the Dead. I'm sick like that, I guess. Give me any zombie movie and I'll sit and watch it for hours on repeat. Especially the Italian ones. I'm a horror junkie, I gues".

Terry nodded, not seeming to care at all. "The Shawshank Redemption".

Mitch nodded as well, but he hadn't even been listening. He was completely lost in his thoughts, and answering trivial questions wasn't improving his mood at all.

"Do you want to know why?" Terry asked.

"Why?"

"I like the idea of people escaping", she replied, shuffling her bag over her shoulder. "I've always wanted to escape. I used to want to make a big rowboat and leave Spanish Rivers. I always dreamed of rowing to Europe". When Mitch didn't respond, Terry decided to hastily change the subject. "Still thinking about Adam Spencers, huh?"

"Don't remind me".

"Don't worry. His name wasn't in the announcement, right?"

Mitch sighed. "But that doesn't mean anything. He could be dying right now, and there's nobody else besides me that would protect him. In case, you didn't realize it, Adam and I really aren't that popular; the only other person that would help us is Peter, and he would help everyone out if he got the chance. In fact, he's probably doing that right now! Adam's going to die if I don't do something! People can die at any second! Remember how Mae Yamamoto was alive in the classroom? Look what happened to her".

Terry shuddered, pulling the hood of her old and tattered black sweatshirt over her head. "I always liked Mae. I thought she was nice. I thought Enrique was nice too, even if did pretend to be tough".

Mitch glanced up uncertainly. "Miguel Chavez and Enrique always said nasty things about you".

"Everyone says nasty things about me, and they're not any different. Eventually, you either let it get to you or you learn to put up with it. I guess I'm just sensitive".

"Well", Mitch replied. "Maybe the whole world would be a little better if everyone was just a little more sensitive. In fact, maybe we wouldn't be on this island murdering eachother".

The two students walked in silence through the woods, almost taking a time to think about that scenario: a world where students were sent to an island to kill eachother. It almost seemed like a fantasy world; it was the Narnia of how they really wanted things to be.

"My grandpa says when he was a kid, there was no program", Mitch remembered. "Everybody got to grow up equally; nobody would be scared if somebody said they were going to go on a ninth grade field trip".

"This isn't a field trip", Terry butt in. "It's a genocide".

"A genocide is against a racial group. Are you saying kids are a racial group?"

Terry shrugged. "Sort of. Think of it a genocide against the next generation. And the whole reason for the genocide in the first place is because the adults are sca-

Before Terry could continue, a rustling sound echoed in the bushes. Almost as an instinct, and ashamed that it had become an instinct to him, Mitch quickly pulled his taser off his waistbelt and raised it threateningly, while on the inside he felt like he would rather die than simply break someone's finger.

"Don't come near us!"

Suddenly, a flash of movement echoed through the bushes as a blue jolt of electricity shocked the air. Almost like a lens flare effect from a camera, Mitch was blinded for several seconds as Terry stood worriedly behind him. Then, on the ground, he made out the figure of the last person he wanted to see.

"That really hurt", Luke Graystone (Boy #5) moaned. "Nice job tasering my arm, Mitch".

"Nice job running away and leaving me with a dieing body, Luke", Mitch said, rolling his eyes. "Have you just been following us?"

Luke shook his head, cringing as he massaged his arm, which seemed slightly pale and limp from the electric shock of the taser. "I found a bunch of cabins in the woods and I've been staying there for awhile. I saw you guys passing and I came outside out of the goodness of my heart". He cringed, still massaging his arm as he sweared under his breath. "Dude, you really screwed my arm up with that taser".

"Give me one reason why I should let you come anywhere near us", Mitch snapped.

Luke grinned sarcastically, pointing at the Bible edging out of his backpack. "I have the power of God on my side, remember?'

Before Mitch could say anything in response, Terry gave him an annoyed shove on his arm. For somebody unathletic like Terry, Mitch was surprised she had actually manage to bruise him.

"Let him join us, Mitch", Terry snapped.

"Do you actually trust him, Terry? Do you know that he abandoned you when you were dieing in the middle of the street?'

Terry rolled her eyes. "I was trying to kill myself anyway, Mitch, so it's either fate or dumb luck that you saved me. Let him join us; he's not hurting anyone".

"Terry, this is the program! Trusting people like this gets you killed; it's a proven fact!"

"Yeah", Terry said, sticking out her chin. "I'd rather die knowing I trusted somebody then dieing like Mae Yamamoto probally did; paranoid without any friends!"

Slightly taken aback by Terry's words, Mitch's slightly annoyed expression suddenly relaxed. "We're friends?'

However, before Terry could respond, Luke butt into the conversation. His blonde ponytail was gleaming white in the morning sunlight, shining down on the leaves below him.

"Great", he said, almost like they had already decided he was part of the group. "I made breakfast. It's waiting back at my cabin. C'mon".

Before Mitch could do anything about it, Terry Klingerman (Girl #6) was following Luke Graystone through the forest, completely devoted to him like he was already her best friend.

Had the fact that his classmates all despised him ruin his sense of trust?

It wasn't true. After all, Mitch trusted Adam Spencers; in fact, it was the only person he trusted in the entire competition. He had completely bottled up his emotions after the reporter incident, never to befriend anyone else.

But Terry had said they were friends. Just with that, Mitch felt like one brick of the wall built up against his trust for people was broken. Not everyone was like the reporter Rosie Toole, ready to exploit him, or in the case of the program, kill him. However, he knew he couldn't trust Luke Graystone yet; after what happened, it would take awhile to knock out Luke's brick from the wall.

Feeling satisfied for perhaps the first time in years, Mitch Kelley (Boy #10) smiled slightly as he trudged after Luke and Terry.

* * *

On the opposite side of the school from where Peter Juntz was planning his suicide mission, another hole was being dug in the ground. However, a kamikaze was the last plan on the minds of the two girls that were digging it. To somebody walking by, it seemed strange that somebody like Sadie Mercedes (Girl #9), who could barely hold her own skinny body up, was now furiously digging a deep trench into the ground with a heavy shovel.

Beside her, Nicole Zaun (Girl #21) clawed at the dirt with her bleeding and dirty hands. Even though the shovel had been Nicole's weapon, she had insisted that Sadie have it. Now, as she shoveled out dirt, Sadie was anything but satisfied; Nicole's fingernails were being destroyed because she knew flimsy and weak Sadie Mercedes wouldn't be able to dig without a shovel. Sometimes, she hated how kind her best friend was too her simply because everyone knew she was an anorexic and weak mess.

"Make sure the dirt falls faraway from the hole, Sadie", Nicole said, cringing at her bloody fingernails from digging. "We don't want to risk a cave-in".

Rolling her eyes, Sadie sighed and placed her shovel down onto the bottom of the hole. "Nicole, I know you're really confident, but I don't think this is going to work. I mean, even if we dig a tunnel into the school, I think our collars will explode even if we're underground".

"Not if we dig deep enough, Sadie! _We'll dig really deep_!"

This had been Nicole's response whenever Sadie has asked her this question.

Obviously, the game was taking its toll on Nicole Zaun and she was slowly becoming insane as a result. It pained Sadie to see her only friend, the only person that had been kind to her, was now losing her mind.

"So", Nicole said, flicking dirt out of her bloody finger. "Ever consider teaming up with Prudence or Jude?"

Sadie shrugged. "Prudence, maybe. I know it sounds weird, but I really don't trust Jude, even if he is my brother".

Nicole nodded bitterly. "I know what you mean. Do you think that screaming we heard awhile ago had anything to do with him? I mean, It was definitely a person. In fact, I think it sounded like Miguel Chavez or one of his friends. I couldn't tell….".

"Are you calling my brother a murderer?" Sadie snapped.

"No, but all I'm saying is you shouldn't trust him, Sadie. This is the program. My family watches it on television every year. Yell at me later for it, but as sick as it is, I actually like watching it. It shows how people can change the moment death is in the picture. I don't personally have anything against Jude, but-

Sadie's white and pale face, usually scrawny, suddenly became red and furious. "Everyone has something against, Jude! _I hate that everyone hates you if your last name is Mercedes_!"

There were tears brimming in her eyes now, but Sadie didn't let it stop her from breaking her glance with Nicole. It was horrible that she, her best friend, could side with everyone else against her; she hated being a Mercedes and it was all because of Jude and Prudence. If they had never existed, maybe Amber Prescott would have actually noticed her.

"I hate that you think that, Sadie", Nicole said, crossing her arms at her chest. "Because that's not why everyone hates you. The real problem is how you're so desperate to be somebody you're not. You hide who you really are!"

"_What the hell are you talking about, Nicole_?'

"You starved yourself just so you would look good for Amber Prescott and be part of her clique! You risked dieing because of fitting in, Sadie! They don't hate you because of Jude and Prudence! _I wonder why nobody likes you_!"

After she had finished screaming, Nicole Zaun gasped at her own words. Even though there had been no violence, no eliminations, the injury had been done verbally. The two friends stared at eachother, almost like they had just met.

"I…", Nicole began.

Sadie shrugged, letting her tears trickle down her face. "Forget it. We're friends, right?'

Nicole forced herself to smile. "Best friends".

* * *

_"Throw it up! Throw it up!"_

_Sadie Mercedes coughed up stringy bile as she lay against the toilet stall, shivering and shaking as her thin body rocked back and forth. Her ribs felt brittle and aching, almost like one tap would send her entire skeleton crumbling apart. It was a long story to why she was now in the girl's bathroom behind the locker room, still in her cheerleading outfit that was now soaked in vomit, but it didn't matter. All she knew was that she had to get out; and fast. J.C was smacking her with her lacrosse stick as she kept up the chant ("Throw it up! Throw it up!") while two other girls on the lacrosse team, Leana and June, giggled as they watched the torment from behind._

_Like every year when she tried out for the cheerleading team, Sadie's medical condition had forbid her from making the team. Although the coach had admitted that her gymnastics skills were better than all of the other girls, she simply wasn't allowed to accept a girl who, "might have the chance of passing out right during a match". In general, Sadie's anorexia had been her downfall. Fleeing to the bathroom to watch up, she had attempted to calm herself down by drinking water from the grimy sink. Unfortunately, her stomach had rejected it just as J.C had entered laughing at a joke with her lacrosse friends._

_And that was when the torture had begun._

_J.C jabbed the lacrosse stick into Sadie's chest again, causing her to gag and gargle out clear and upchucked water that sputtered and dribbled down to her blouse. Before Sadie even had a chance to breathe, the lacrosse stick came back, causing her to gag and spit out another round of vomit that splattered down into the toilet bowl._

_"Get off her!"_

_Leana and June were holding Nicole back with their muscular arms, making sure she had no chance of helping her friend. Sadie wasn't exactly sure if Leana and June were actually enjoying this. It was more along the lines that they had been given the opprutunity to be seen hanging out with J.C Brooke, and although nobody particulary liked her, nobody passed up on the offer. It was almost like being seen with an obnoxious movie star; people would be impressed anyway._

_J.C snorted. "Shut up, Nicole. She's fine. She's just a little sick, and I'm helping her stomach clear up a little. Now, where were we?"_

_She jabbed the lacrosse stick into Sadie's chest again, causing her to howl out in pain and empty another batch of bile into the toilet. Sadie's entire body was on fire and now, with nearly all the fat on her body gone, she looked like some kind of skeleton. Anymore of the lacrosse stick had the chance of killing her; she wondered if J.C knew this._

_"J.C", June said worriedly. "Umm...Maybe you should stop. She looks like she's going to pass out.."._

_"Nobody asked you, June! She's fine. Right Sadie?"_

_June bit her lip and glanced over at Leana, but still, she didn't say anything. Nicole, however, looked like she had suddenly been struck with an idea. Fingering into the pocket of her jeans, wrestling with the grip of the two lacrosse players. She struggled to shove her fingers into the linen of her pocket, finally managing to flick out a photograph. Just as J.C swung back the lacrosse stick, ready to angle into Sadie's stomach again, Nicole passed the picture through the air, causing it to land softly against the back wall of the toilet stall._

_Sadie's eyes opened wide._

_The picture had been taken earlier that day before cheerleading try-outs. Sadie, before her uniform had been soaked in vomit, was smiling at the camera, obviously ready to try the best she could do. Her pom-poms were fluttered at her side. She had been absolutely confindent she would make the team, and the picture would serve as a reminder of that forever; not the fact she hadn't made the cut-off for the team, but the simple fact that she had been so determined. __It was a wonderful feeling looking at the picture. Sadie Mercedes could do anything._

_Even fight J.C Brooke._

_What happened next was history. Sadie wrestled with J.C on the grimy bathroom floor for a whole five minutes before she was finally overpowered. J.C left the bathroom with the other girls angrily, slamming the door as Sadie lay beaten on the floor. Her eye was bruised, her thin stomach had a slick cut on it from J.C's angst boot, but still, she was smiling. Nicole knelt by her side, and for several seconds, nobody needed to talk. Although she had lost, like she often did, it didn't matter. Sadie had believed in herself. That was all that mattered._

"_If it weren't for you_", Sadie began. "_I don't think I would be able to stand up for myself..."_

* * *

"Did you remember to throw the dirt farther out, Sadie?" Nicole asked, changing the subject from their argument.

Even though Sadie had simply tossed the dirt to the border of the hole, basically trapping them inside, she instantly blinked, forgetting the glorious moment in time she had just remembered.

"Huh?"

"The dirt?"

"Yeah, whatever".

Nicole stared. "Were you thinking about something? You seemed kind of zoned out for a second".

Sadie shrugged and picked up the shovel, heavy in her brittle arms. "It's nothing. C'mon, let's keep digging our tunnel into the school".

Grinning, Nicole brought her bleeding fingers back into the soil again, instantly scooping it out like a garbage truck and hauling it up. She was like a mindless gardener harvesting her soil. She had no other thoughts but to escape the island...

"I think you care too much about me, Nicole…"

"Huh?'

"Protect yourself. I mean, I'm just one person. You care way too much about what happens to me".

Nicole bit her lip, but only responded by continuing to shovel out more soil with her bloody and nail-ridden hands. Checking her watch, Sadie glanced at the time.

"It's almost seven in the morning. Only sixty-five more hours to go until this whole thing is over".

Nicole rolled her eyes. "Whoop-de-doo".

_Crickle…_

Almost instantly, something fell and crumbled on the bridge of Sadie's nose. As soon as she managed to shake it off and glance at it, she realized it was dirt; part of the dirt pile she had thrown on the outside of the hole. However, before she could think of anything else, the sound came again.

_Crickle…Crickle…_

This time, nearly five specks of dirt came falling down at Sadie's feet, followed by an entire clump. _What the hell was going on_? _Was it raining dirt?_

"Sadie", Nicole began, worriedly. "You remembered to throw the dirt far away from the hole when you shoveled it out, right?"

"I-

However, when Sadie saw exactly what was happening, her sentence was caught halfway up her throat in a gasp. Standing on top of the hole was Darren Warner (Boy #20). His innocent smile, the result of being a victim of Down's Syndrome, glanced down at Sadie Mercedes and Nicole Zaun thoughtfully.

Even though Darren was not in their classes due to his special needs, he was in their gym class, apparently qualifying him as part of their lucky group of forty-two students. Even though Sadie never participated in gym, she was always amazed by Darren's strength. He would run seven laps around the track, almost like his life depended on it, and when it was over, he would beg the coach in a tantrum that he wanted to run again. Even though his neck was pulsing and he looked like he was going to pass out, Darren always wanted to run again.

His strength, which he didn't even seem to be aware of, terrified Sadie.

And now, resting at his cartoon character sneakers, was the large pile of dirt beside the hole he was busily kicking in. His eyes almost seemed like they were smiling too, curled up in excitement as he hummed softly.

Even though it was too horrible to accept, Darren Warner was burying them alive. Sadie opened her mouth to scream, but instead, her jaw dropped at the first true act of violence she had seen in the program.

* * *

**No Students Eliminated**

* * *

**37 Students Remaining**

* * *


	9. Day 1: Hour 7: 37 Students Remaining

For a second, Sadie Mercedes (Girl #9) could only stare at Darren Warner (Boy #20) from the bottom of the pit. His angular pimply head, symmetrical from his badly-grown sideburns, glared down at her like a gravedigger.

Nicole and her hadn't dug an escape route from this horrible game; they had dug their own graves.

Without another thought in her mind, Sadie shrieked as Darren continued to kick in the clumps of dirt, covering her toes at the bottom of the pit like they were tickling in the sand at the beach. She clawed her fingers desperately at the wall of the pit, but it was no use; there was no way she would be able to climb out.

"_Sadie_!'

Sadie spun around, just in time to see the left side of the pit completely cave in with a cracking sound of sputtering dirt. Almost like an avalanche, Nicole's face simply vanished like it had never been there. A black wave, an avalanche of dirt, engulfed her head, instantly burying her. When Sadie was young, she had watched a documentary of miners becoming trapped after an earthquake. Although the re-anactments had been horribly acted, she had never imagined them to be so true to how it really looked.

At her feet, covered in dirt, Sadie felt something brush her leg from deep below the dirt; _Nicole's arm?_

Not wasting a second, Sadie's heart began to pound like a jackhammer as she began to level out the dirt, which had now buried up to her waist. She would have cried, but for some reason, there were no tears left. It was a horrible feeling, knowing you couldn't cry for your best friend.

"Nicole!" Sadie screamed. "_Nicole_!"

However, there was only silence as another large clump of dirt fell roughly onto her head. Now, the dirt had nearly buried up to her shoulders, and she was faced with two choices; dieing with Nicole Zaun (Girl #21) or saving herself.

As obvious and bland as a normal person's choice would have been, Sadie actually felt herself contemplating it. The last thing she wanted to do was take a trip down memory road for Nicole, but she couldn't help it. Nicole had actually cared about her. In Sadie's world, full of cruel popular girls and siblings who made her look like a criminal, she was nearly a sister to her; almost more of a sister than Prudence ever had been.

"Nicole!" Sadie screamed. "Say _something_! Say _something_!"

However, it was Darren who said something instead. Staring at the ground as he kicked in the dirt, he opened his mouth in a twisted smile.

"You're cheating", he screamed in his hoarse voice, childishly. "Not playing the game, right!

Trying to run away! You stay and fight like the other war men! You stay and fight!"

Darren uttered the last line like a two-year old losing at a board game. Having no clue of what he was talking about, and only knowing her best friend was buried under dirt, Sadie ignored Darren Warner. With tears and dirt streaking down her face, she continued to dig through the dirt leveling up to her neck, knowing Nicole was somewhere in there. In the end, it didn't matter how far she dug, because everything was okay. Nicole Zaun couldn't die.

"Stop it, Darren!" Sadie said, completely deliriously. "Please stop it!"

A clump of dirt covered her mouth, and suddenly, Sadie realized she couldn't move her arm. Her entire body, below her neck, was buried in dirt like a body that she knew she would be in merely several minutes. But if she died, it was okay. She would die with Nicole, her best friend.

In her head, Sadie's rotting mind began to make up her own deranged ending to the competition. Prudence and Jude escaped…They escaped to another island and lived there for the rest of the their lives…_They were happy_…Either that, or they were both dead…

Suddenly, just when she felt the dirt begin to clog in her nose, a strange sound echoed into the air. There was a sickening thud, followed by Darren Warner moaning and falling limply to the ground above the pit.

"What the hell are you doing, Darren?" a familiar voice snapped.

"_Am I dead_?' Sadie thought. "_Is this what death is like? Replaying everything the way it should have been_?'

The familiar voice entered the air again. "Oh, _shit_!"

The sunlight burned Sadie's eyes as the dirt beside her was slowly dug out of the pit that she had once thought had been her grave. In an instant, she could open her mouth and breathe again as the dirt was torn away. In the sunlight burning in her eyes, she made out an arm, followed by long hair; a girl's hair.

_It was Nicole! Nicole had somehow found her way out of the pit and was saving her! She was such a good friend! Nicole!_

The dirt around her chest was being leveled out, slowly allowing her breathing to return to normal. Craning her neck, she stared deliriously at the girl that was using her own hands to claw her out of the pit.

"Nicole?'

Almost instantly, the girl's face lit up in joy. "Thank God, you're _alive_! I thought you were gone for a second!"

Sadie smiled thoughtfully, sputtering out dirt from her teeth. "I thought you were dead, Nicole. All of the dirt fell in…You were almost gone…"

The girl stared at her with a slightly concerned look on her face. "Nicole? Is she here, too?"

Almost instantly, Sadie's eyes registered the truth. Prudence Mercedes (Girl #8) sat with her knees in the dirt. Her reddish blonde hair, sweaty and still like she had run around the entire island, was tangled in a mess around the metal collar on her neck. Her muscled arms, the result of playing both lacrosse and volleyball, were torn and seemed like they had been punctured; thorns?

"Prudence", Sadie muttered. "Where's Nicole?"

Almost instantly, Prudence's face lit up in terror. Obviously, she had just completely understood exactly what had happened. Trembling as she glanced down at the dirt she was kneeling on, she glanced back up at Sadie.

"She got buried? Did the walls cave in?"

For no good reason in Sadie's opinion, Prudence angrily slapped her across the face. It hit her roughly, stinging her face that had been sunburned from digging a hole that had served as Nicole's grave.

"What were you even trying to do?" she snapped. "Dig into the school? You know that the radio transmissions reach the collars no matter what, right? What the hell were you thinking, Sadie? You could have been killed! If I didn't knock Darren out, you'd probally be dead!"

Sniffling, and feeling tears in her eyes, Sadie said the only thing she wanted to know. "Is Nicole here?'

Shaking her head bitterly, Prudence continued to tear at the dirt, slowly freeing Sadie from the cave-in that had nearly ended her life. "You're crazy. I'll have to find a way to calm you down when I get you out. After that, we'll find Jude".

And with that, still completely delirious and unsure of what had happened, Sadie Mercedes (Girl #9) fainted in the dirt as her sister continued to furiously dig her out. As her head softly fell back into the dirt, only one word repeated in her head.

_Nicole…_

* * *

_As the curtains pulled in with the thunderous clapping coming from the audience, Roxy Patterson forced herself to smile as she stood on the stage. She finally let herself come back, reminding herself that she was Roxy Patterson and not the character she was pretending to be on stage. Mr.Heinburg, their drama instructor, had worked desperately for the rights to allow Spanish Rivers High School to put on a production of the hit Broadway show Rent for the school play. Like everyone had expected, Roxy Patterson, the best actress in the entire school, had received the important role of Mimi._

_As the curtains finally closed, Roxy's heart pounded from holding that last note in her lungs. Quickly, the entire lead cast hurried backstage through the side doors of the dark stage, still hearing the thunderous clapping in their ears. Roxy quickly brushed the makeup off her tan face as she climbed down the short staircase to the back room. Music was blaring from a stereo system in the corner, and a long table full of food covered an entire wall; it was the wrap-up party for the cast._

"_Roxy!"_

_Before Roxy could turn around, Mr.Heinburg's beefy hand was already on her shoulder comfortingly. He smiled, stretching his pudgy face like an inflating balloon._

"_I'm proud of you", he said, grinning. "That was probally your best performance, yet. If you keep this up, you may be accepted into the senior drama club in three years"._

_Roxy nodded. It was a dream she had fantasized about every night. Some day, everyone knew the name Roxy Patterson would be in a playbill on Broadway. Being in the senior drama club could give her the opportunity to go to an acting college and start her awaiting career._

"_Thanks, Mr.Heinburg", Roxy replied, grinning back._

"_You can make it, Roxy", Mr.Heinburg said. "Never give up, and your name will be on Broadway. You have talent; don't waste it". Shuffling through a stack of papers in his arms, he pulled out a yellow packet. "This is an application form for an acting camp in Talon Rivers, nearby. It's hard to get in to, but look into it, Roxy"._

_Roxy nodded with tears of happiness in her eyes. As Mr.Heinburg strutted away to go talk to several of the other drama instructors, Roxy instantly began looking at the yellow packet he had handed her. It almost seemed like a golden ticket for her fifteen minutes of fame. Her fingers shaking excitedly, she quickly began to read the first question._

**Describe your personality and relate it to why you belong at Talon Rivers Youth Acting Camp. Ten sentences or less, please.**

"_Do you have a pencil, Mare?" Roxy asked._

_Mare Ewing, her best friend, who had been filling a cup of punch from the snack bar, turned around. For somebody with punkish and spiky green hair and the reputation for being a thief, Mare was a surprise for everyone to be in the drama club. It was even more suprising that she had also gotten an important role in the play; the role of Maureen._

"_There's one on the floor", she said. "Oh, nice job in the play, Roxy! You were great!"_

_Roxy smiled, trying to be modest. "You too"._

_Picking up the dull pencil Mare had pointed out on the floor, Roxy turned back to the first question, ready to describe her personality._

_However, that was when she had a horrible realization that destroyed her entire night: Roxy Patterson couldn't describe herself._

_All her life, she had been so used to getting into character for any play that she performed. Whether it was playing Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, or tonight, Mimi in Rent, Roxy would completely convince herself that she was the character when she was on stage, making her an incredible actress. She would tap herself into the character's dreams, aspirations, and fears, completely confident that she actually was the character._

_She had spent so much time convincing herself she was different characters that she didn't even have a personality of her own._

"_What's the matter, Roxy?" Mare asked, slightly alarmed. "Why are you crying?"_

_However, Roxy didn't answer. All she knew was that whenever she thought of a single word to describe herself, it related to Mimi instead of her._

_She wasn't even a real person anymore._

* * *

In sector B9, destined to become a Danger Zone in twenty minutes, Roxy Patterson (Girl #12) stood on the tallest rock over the lagoon. Because she knew her time searching for ships was short, she tried to make the best of it, praying softly a rescue ship would come over the horizon for her to flag it down. After all, she knew the competition was not a joke; her cousin, Sarah, had died in the program as well. The last thing the Patterson family needed was another funeral with government officials standing side-by-side her coffin. Even though she had fairly pretty blue eyes, Roxy was very average looking; she had a heart-shaped face, neatly cropped, short black hair, and a slightly hooked nose. Because of this, she generally went unnoticed in the hallway. In the eyes of the student body, Roxy was as unflavorful and tasteless as vanilla ice cream.

Her personality was bland and lifeless, and deep down, she knew exactly why.

Roxy blinked back her tears, remembering that horrible night where she had suddenly realized how she had destroyed her entire life. Life was like a chorus line. You either got the routine or you didn't. Unfortunately, Roxy had understood the routine so well that she had mastered it and tackled many others. In the end, there was no routine or even dance move left for her.

Almost instantly, fearing her individuality, Roxy had given up acting to everyone's, especially Mr.Heinburg's, dismay and shock. She had struggled to regain herself, but it was no use.

Roxy didn't have a favorite color. Roxy didn't have any dreams anymore. Roxy didn't even have a favorite food. She had spent so much time pretending to be other people that she had lost her own personality.

Staring out over the cliff, Roxy pondered how close she was too death. Just one step would send her into the water, detonating her collar the moment she went out-of-boundaries of the competition. It would be the end of Roxy Patterson, who had died on the inside long ago and now needed to die on the outside, too.

The tropical wind whipped her face, tearing her tears across her cheeks. Sniffling, in the distance of the sunlight sparkling across the water, she saw a cruise ship pass the island like it was nothing. There were even sounds of cheering and laughing; they weren't even aware that a ninth-grade class was killing eachother merely fifty yards away.

"Help me!" Roxy screamed out into the water, desperately. "Help me! _Help us_!"

That was when Roxy suddenly realized they weren't cheering because of the fun they were having on the cruise; they were actually completely aware of what was happening on the island.

They were cheering for the competition itself.

On the ship's deck, a muffled shouting of, "Jude! Jude! Jude!" hung in the air like a high note. A man's voice roared out, "Kill em' Lea!" slurred by alcohol and what seemed like a lung filled with cigarette smoke. They were having a great time cheering for their awaiting deaths. The thought that this made Roxy angry satisfied her.

"_Roxy Patterson doesn't like the program_", she thought.

Maybe it was part of her personality.

Brushing her tears away as the ship slowly vanished over the horizon, Roxy began to climb down over the rocks beside the lagoon. The light bouncing off the rocks casted exotic blue light on the lagoon, shimmering it with a tropical light Roxy knew she would never see growing up in Spanish Rivers.

As she hopped off the last rock onto the grass, Roxy thought of Mare Ewing (Girl #3). In the classroom, she had been shot in the leg, which could have been fatal if the shot had been intended to kill her. This would obviously cripple her for the game, and she had a little chance of survival now. She was Roxy's only friend and alliance, and she could die at any minute. In fact, she could already be dead.

Roxy shuddered as the memory replayed in her head. The bullet had ricocheted off a desk before nailing Mare directly in her thigh, causing a patch of blood to appear instantly on her jeans. Even when Roxy whispered to her if she was okay, she hadn't answered; she had merely swore angrily as she massaged the wound.

Everybody had always thought Mare being in the drama club was odd, but Roxy didn't see anything wrong with it. Mare's physciatrist had listed acting as a way to soothe her kleptomania, the reason she stole from her classmates, and it had definitely improved. At least Mare had stopped robbing stores for a little while…

_Thuck!_

In a flash of light, Roxy Patterson (Girl #12) saw stars as her spinal cord shot up like fireworks had been planted under her.

Before she even had a chance to glance up, something long and blunt painfully nailed her in the back. A golf club. Her attacker stood behind her, and had apparently also come from the rocks at the lagoon. Had they been watching her the entire time?

When she glanced up in agony, she was able to move just in time for Lea Passington (Girl #11) to avoid crushing her skull in with the golf club. Her back felt like it was on fire, but thankfully, nothing was broken. Any harder, she could have even been paralyzed.

"You're a weed!" Lea shrieked, her eyes bulging like dinner plates. "_Grow down_!"

Somehow, Roxy managed to scurry herself up from the ground and tighten her grip on the scissors in her arm. In her mind, it almost seemed like a script for a play she was reading; the character Roxy dies tragically at the end of the first act.

Crouching over and still nearly immobile from the golf club hitting her in the back, Roxy did the only thing left inside her that still made sense. While Roxy's personality and characteristics had been loss, her sense of dignity hadn't; she wouldn't die at the hands of the class outcast who had spent more time reading in her life than learning how to fight for herself.

In the corner of her eye, Lea was advancing at her, the golf club tightened in her grip. Screeching in pain as her back continued to screech at her, Roxy closed her tear-filled eyes and stabbed the scissors roughly into Lea's shoulder.

Almost instantly, Roxy felt blood soaking down Lea's sweater as she pulled out the dull blade. The fabric had been artfully torn, and like Mare's jeans, a dark red patch was slowly forming. For a second, Roxy had the strange delusion that Lea didn't bleed the same color as everyone else; the monsters that played the game were not human.

However, the moment passed when she saw the dark red leaking down Lea's white sweater in the sunlight. Spinning around with the pain still throbbing in her back, Roxy attempted to make a desperate sprint for her life. However, just before she managed to escape from Lea Passington, Lea's nails dug into her left hand, prying out the scissors.

"_Oh god, I lost my weapon_", Roxy thought, the words repeating in her head. "_I lost my fucking weapon_".

Scrambling over the rock of the lagoon as she ran for her life, the agonized screams of Lea Passington (Girl #11) rang through her ears, knowing she was completely responsible for them. However, even with a stab wound in her shoulder, Lea could still talk.

"Run!" she shrieked. "Just keep running! Nothing will _grow back_!"

And as she ran, Roxy realized something, aside from the fact that Lea was insane. She was feeling nothing. Besides the pain in her back and the slight remorse of stabbing Lea, there was nothing. No regret in playing the game, no excitement at what was in head of her, and no sadness either.

Roxy was an empty shell of a person. All that was left of her now was a poorly written character in a play; one with no personality.

* * *

The cabin that Luke had mentioned was hardly suitable for one person; it was almost like a cramped coffin for three.

The main room, the kitchen, smelled like fresh pine and bark. On the kitchen counter, a large tray of good was lain out; Luke's apology to the group. Aside from a wet-looking bathroom and _one_ bed situated in the corner, that was it. Luke's cabin was more like a large shack.

Climbing up through the rickety porch with Terry behind him and Luke already inside, Mitch surveyed their tight quarters. However, the main thing that caught him by surprise was the tray of food that Luke had prepared for breakfast.

"You made all of that?'

Luke shrugged. "Think of it as my apology present. I'm not cooking anything else for you".

Five fried eggs were sprawled out on the plate, along with several strips of bacon, still sizzling like Luke had just prepared them on the grill. Beside the bacon, spilled slightly, were a couple of cups of orange juice. One biscuit was in the center; it was the best breakfast they could possibly get in the program.

Terry grinned. "Thanks".

However, before Terry could reach out to grab a strip of bacon, Mitch swatted her hand. Staring suspiciously at Luke, he picked up the lone biscuit in the center of the tray.

"We don't know if he poisoned the food, Terry", Mitch said, staring suspiciously at Luke.

Terry rolled her eyes. "Mitch, remember what I told you about trusting people?"

"Terry, you weren't even conscious when he ran away; we don't know if we should even be here right now".

Mitch inspected the biscuit closely, but he couldn't find a trace of anything; no rat poison, arsenic, or anything you would find under the sink. It was a biscuit and nothing else.

"You can starve, Mitch", Luke said. "But if you ask us later on for food besides bad-tasting bread rolls, tough luck. By the way, I know for a fact the government uses spare sawdust for dough in the bread".

With a sigh, Mitch tossed the biscuit back onto the plate with a soft thud and grabbed a strip of bacon. Suprisingly, he was actually hungry. However, the moment he put his teeth on the bacon, he almost vomited; it was overcooked and burned. However, looking at Luke's smiling face, he forced himself to smile back and swallow the blackened and hard strip of bacon.

"It's really good…"

"Thanks. I worked hard on it".

Terry bit into a fried egg, and by the look on her face, Mitch could tell that the eggs were cold and undercooked. However, she also managed to force herself to swallow it.

"Where'd you find the food?" Terry asked, finishing off the egg with a gulp of orange juice, the one thing Luke hadn't managed to ruin.

"I stole it from the pantry", Luke replied. "And if any of you start with a bunch of self-righteous shit about stealing, it was either this or sawdusty bread rolls".

There was an awkward silence between all three of them, beside Terry washing down her cold egg with orange juice. Finally, Luke said the last thing Mitch wanted to hear.

"Got any plans to win?"

Mitch shook his head. "All we know is that we're not playing the game no matter what. Even if there's people out there killing everyone".

"Who do you think killed Mae and everyone else?" Terry asked.

Mitch shrugged, batting his dark hair out of his eyes. The thought had troubled him ever since the announcement. Even though he had been trying to convince himself that Skylar, Jesse, Enrique, and Mae had all committed suicide, he knew it wasn't true; there were definitely killers out there.

"Do you really want to know who's playing the game?"

Mitch's eyes instantly perked up, almost like a child being told where the Christmas presents were. "Who?"

"I was walking by the south beach when I was trying to find a place to hide. I saw Shyla Ryals holding a gun at Adrienne Spring. Erin Thompson was on the ground like she was unconscious; I think she was alive, though. Victoria and Amber were both standing there, too. I sort of freaked out and ran away".

_Shyla Ryals…_

On the top of the list of the most unlikely students to kill everyone, Shyla Ryals (Girl #16) would be number one. Aside from the fact that she was simply a pleasant chubby girl who was known to hate violence, the fact of Shyla pointing a gun at Adrienne Spring (Girl #17) was unimaginable to Mitch; everyone in Amber's clique had seemed like such good friends.

"Are you sure Shyla would play the game?" Terry asked. "I mean, it really doesn't seem like her".

Luke shrugged. "Who knows? The game changes people; we all know that. Maybe she was just protecting Amber, or maybe Amber and Shyla are working together. Either way, I could be wrong".

"So Adrienne's dead?" Mitch asked.

Instead of answering, Luke picked up a runny fried egg from the plate, causing oil to drip down his fingers. The moment he bit into it, he grimaced.

"You guys are stupid", Luke said. "This food sucks even more than the bread rolls".

Throwing the egg into the wastepaper basket under the counter, Luke itched the skin under his collar and walked to the window. Now that the sunlight was illuminating the cabin, Mitch noticed it was dusty; thousands of dust specks were floating in the open air as Luke stared out the window.

"It doesn't really look that different…"

Mitch stared blankly. "What?"

Shaking his head, Luke brushed the sea of dust specks away from his face and knocked the tray of food into the garbage. His ponytail, like a snake, swished behind his head.

"It's nothing. I was just thinking…"

Terry raised her eyebrow. "You know, if you want to stay with us, you might as well tell us everything you know".

As much as he had disagreed with Terry's opinions, Mitch found himself nodding. "We'll find out anyway".

"Before I moved to Spanish Rivers, Cuna Cielo was my home".

For a second, Mitch was sure he hadn't heard Luke right. For one thing, Luke wasn't making any sense. Second, if he was making sense, he was a guarenteed maniac.

"You're hiding something, Luke", Terry suddenly said. "There's more to it. And if you don't tell us, you're a coward".

Tapping his fingers on the counter, Luke grimaced as he glanced up at Terry. "If I tell you the rest, you'll probally both kill me".

For the first time since Mitch had met her, Terry actually seemed threatening. All her life, she had always seemed secluded and lonely; even when she had smiled, there was never any trace of anger or fear. Now, however, even Mitch was scared of her.

"We'll kill you if you don't tell us", Terry continued. "Tell us the rest, now".

"You know the boxes they have in the grocery stores in the summer? You put your name in to sign up for the program, but whenever you walk by, there's no names in there because nobody is that stupid?'

Mitch nodded. "Yeah, there's one in the Stop-And-Shop back in Spanish Rivers".

"On the last day of the summer, my name was the only one in there".

Mitch and Terry both felt like they had both jumped out of their skin.

* * *

**Eliminated**

**(Girl #21) Zaun, Nicole Eliminated**

**36 Students Remaining**

* * *

**The mention of Roxy Patterson's cousin Sarah was a reference to MATTWEEK's Battle Royale story and his character Sarah Patterson. He asked for the character to be mentioned in the story. I like to think of all of the American Battle Royale stories as seperate programs of different years.**

**Oh, and the mention of Spanish Rivers High performing Rent was just because I like the play. I guess I should make a disclaimer that I don't own Rent, lol.**

**I killed off Nicole because she was the one person that could really relate to Sadie. It was important for that loss to affect her.**


	10. Day 1: Hour 8: 36 Students Remaining

The moment Luke finished his words, it was like a strange change of reactions. Terry looked at Mitch in disbelief, Luke looked at all of them with a look of worry in his eyes, and Mitch merely stared at Luke with a look of utter horror.

Then, not even knowing what he was doing, Mitch screamed.

"_I'll kill you_!"

Before anybody in the cramped cabin could do anything, Mitch made a desperate leap for Luke, instantly pinning him to the ground. Reaching over Luke's shoulder, he managed to unzip and quickly grab the taser from his backpack. The electricity juggled itself, threatening Luke like a stormy night.

"_You signed up_!" Mitch screamed, holding Luke's throat to the ground. "I can't believe you signed up for this!"

Terry, who had been furious moments ago, now looked at Mitch in disgust. She bent down quickly, tearing at Mitch's arm.

"Let go of him, _Mitch_!"

Mitch rolled his eyes. "Terry, stop preaching to me about trusting everyone! Look what it led, too! _Don't you get it_? Luke signed up for the competition, and since he was chosen, they selected our school for him to compete against! They just shipped his class out with him because he signed up! _If it weren't for him, we wouldn't be on this island_!"

Even though he knew he was being cruel, he didn't care. He had never been this angry before in his entire life; he was angrier than the reporter incident, angrier than when his father had died of skin cancer, and even angrier than when Zane Barrens had attacked Adam this morning. His pores felt like they were on fire, consuming every inch of his body until his only thoughts were of his hate for Luke Graystone. He had loved his class. Even if many of them didn't deserve to be living, they were all human beings, and even though he may not have meant it, Luke had sentenced them to death.

Luke struggled to say something in defense, but Mitch had his hand over his mouth. In his left hand, he was struggling to fight with Terry, who was desperately attempting to pull the taser away from him.

"Don't hurt him!" Terry protested

"You've been given me all of this crap since we met!" Mitch roared. "You want me to trust everyone, right? Why should I trust the person that condoned us to death? He's a murderer!"

"I murder myself all the time", Terry snapped, raising her cut and tattered wrist to Mitch's eyes. "It still makes me a human being".

Mitch's hand nearly slipped from the taser, but somehow, he managed to hold on and resist Terry's grip "That's different! Cutting yourself is a lot different than signing up to kill your classmates!"

Once again, Luke struggled to say something, but it was untranslatable. Mitch's palm was wet, and it took a second to register that Luke was crying.

"_Terry_", Mitch screamed, struggling to pull the taser back. "_You have no idea what the hell you're talking about, do you?_"

"We said we wouldn't play the game", Terry said, almost calmly. "Everyone's a human being, Mitch. A person's a person, no matter how smal-

"Oh, great time to quote Dr.Seuss", Mitch snapped back. "And that all really makes a whole lot of sense!"

Luke spit onto Mitch's palm and was now desperately attempting to bite it. In fact, he was succeeding; Mitch could feel warm blood dripping out of his palm and into Luke's mouth.

"Look", Mitch sighed, trying to remain calm. "We can end this all right now. We can just leave him here, say I was right about not trusting everyone, and we'll leave it at that".

"I'm not leaving it at that! Ever consider the fact that you haven't even let Luke talk yet?"

Mitch, sweating furiously, turned back to the boy with the ponytail who's chest he was kneeling on. Luke seemed almost hopeless; his tear-filled eyes seemed completely defeated, and Mitch was still struggling to ignore the intense pain Luke had done by biting into his palm.

"Okay", Mitch said, seeing there was no hope to Terry's arguments. "We'll let _Luke_ talk and see what he has to say".

Cringing from the pain, Mitch yelped as he managed to shake his hand out of Luke's teeth. The moment he did, Luke coughed in a horrible hacking sound and began to cough out blood; Mitch's blood that he had gotten in his mouth from biting him. Groaning, he slicked back his ponytail, streaking it with red.

"_This..."_ Luke breathed. "This is why I was scared of telling you guys the truth…"

And with that, Luke Graystone (Boy #5) fainted onto the wooden floor, his ponytail hanging lopsidedly across his face. Finally letting the anger leave him, Mitch suddenly realized what he had done; _or what he had almost done…_

"I'm sorry!" Mitch shrieked. "I'm so sorry, Luke!"

Luckily, feeling the pulse on his neck, Luke was alive. Mitch hadn't forgiven him, but like Terry said, killing a person was wrong. Either that, or Mitch was too cowardly to do it.

Whimpering, he turned to Terry, who had taken the taser away from him sometime during the struggle. She was hugging her knees softly, almost muttering something. Her long sleeves of her sweatshirt were pressed hard against her ears.

"Terry", Mitch asked. "_D-D-do you forgive me_?"

Terry stared into space, shaking as she glanced down at Luke's unconscious body. "_A person's a person no matter how-_

"_Terry_! Listen to me! You forgive me, right? I didn't trust him! But you forgive me, right?"

Terry didn't answer. Instead, causing the wooden floorboards to creak as she got up, she quietly knelt down beside Luke, sprawled out on the floor like a crime scene investigation. Slowly, she began to drag him across the floor, finally bringing him to the single moldy cot of a bed in the corner. After sprawling out on the dirty mat, she finally turned back to Mitch.

"I don't know what to think right now…" she whispered.

* * *

Jude Mercedes (Boy #11) was taking a mental inventory on himself as he sat between the thorny bushes that, unknown to him, his sister had been shortly before the demise of her friend. However, Jude had no knowledge of that; Sadie and Prudence could be anywhere on the island.

_No weapon…tossed it away…broken bottle_

_Have all my food and water…_

_Have a map…know the Danger Zones_

More confident than ever, Jude swished back his cleanly cut red hair and analyzed his final plan. It was going to be set in motion now: if anybody attacked him or threatened him, like Mae Yamamoto (Girl #20) obviously had, he would kill them brutally without laying a hand on them; he would kill them with his words alone. Finally, after finding Prudence and Sadie, they would find a way to kill Reynold Burke and escape.

It would be a quick and easy removal of themselves from the society that Jude had grown to hate. They would move to an isolated island and live there forever; away from the stupidity of all of their dead classmates. It was the perfect plan, and now, kneeling up from the bushes, Jude decided to set it in motion.

It never even occurred to him that walking around the island in the open was merely asking somebody to threaten him and cause him to kill them…

Obviously, deep down, Jude had a growing anger to take revenge on his stupid classmates and play the game. It was eating the inside of him, and eventually, he knew he would have to feed the growing hunger.

"_It all depends what happens_", Jude tried to convince himself.

However, it was clear to him that he knew exactly what he wanted to happen.

Whistling casually, Jude ducked beneath the thorny branches, careful to avoid any splintery thorns. The sunlight had finally pierced under the forest canopy, and now the bright tropical sunlight was even illuminating the thorny bushes. The berries, multicolored black and red, hung out loosely against the thorny and jutting sticks.

Moving through the bushes, Jude was so lost in his thoughts that he failed to notice that a shadow was also creeping through the bushes, fidgeting his fingers delightfully. There was a large bruise on the shadow's forehead, which seemed like it had been powerful enough to knock him unconscious.

Jude Mercedes (Boy #11), unfortunately, was too lost with his own planning that he failed to notice the pistol of Darren Warner (Boy #20) aiming at his back. At the very last second, in the corner of his eye, Jude was able to register who it was, along with the gun in his hands. For the first time in the competition, Jude's mind instantly broke for a simply reason.

Darren's mind was already broken. There was no way Jude could do any more damage.

"_Darren_-

Terrified, Jude lost his balance and tumbled into the thorn bush beside him, painfully puncturing splintery thorns into his back. If he had just moved out of the way for merely a inch, he may have been able to avoid the bush…

Or the bullet that ricocheted agonizingly into his left arm.

* * *

Darren Warner, closing in for the kill, glanced at the boy with the collared shirt. He was simply a freshman with the mind of a kindergartner; his variety of emotions were happy, sad, and angry.

Darren decided he was happy.

As Darren raised his pistol toward Jude, he watched as the boy put up his hand, almost like he trying to deflect the bullet. War men didn't deflect bullets; they died in honor and went down fighting.

"Stop Darren!" Jude screamed, almost struggling to think of what to say. "I…I…_want to be your friend_!"

_A friend_. It was such a strange concept to somebody like Darren who had been isolated all life because of Down's Syndrome…

He fired the pistol, but somehow, Jude managed to move out of the way, tumbling out of the thorn bush as a bustle of berries were torn and splattered against the dirt by the oncoming bullet. Cocking the gun again, Darren pointed at Jude again, ready to fire at any moment.

He was already slightly upset about how he had discovered two girls. Girls, of all things! They had seemed to be trying to escape the battle zone. The fact that there were women in the battle zone confused Darren so much that he had decided to hide them away. Hide them away under the dirt…

After that, he had no clue exactly what had happened. The last thing he remembered feeling was a blunt object painfully knocking him semi-unconscious.

Now, seeing a new victim, Darren decided to finish doing the dieing.

He fired again, this time nailing Jude directly in the shoulder. He howled in pain, rolling over, but still, he managed to kneel up. Jude's left arm was now completely useless; he wouldn't be able to do anything with it anymore.

"_Please stop_!" Jude screeched. "I want to be your friend! I want to be your friend!"

Suddenly, Darren was overwhelmed with a new feeling. Having the mentality of a young child, all he knew was that he was tired. It didn't matter that this was a life or death situation; it was just another nap time to him. He had no true perception of what was going on.

"I'm tired', Darren said, dreamily. "And I'm going asleep…"

Almost like Jude hadn't understood him, he said it again. "Going asleep…"

And with that, Darren Warner (Boy #20), who aspired to do the dieing, curled up into a ball like a fetus and closed his eyes under the prickle of thorn bushes.

As Darren slowly fell asleep, Jude Mercedes, sobbing from the pain in his left arm, quickly swiped up the pistol as he slowly massaged his left arm; it was beyond repair and the pain was searing through his arm. As he walked away, he thought about his true weakness: if somebody's mind was already broken, like Darren, there was no way Jude could manipulate them. Jude would have to kill them, and when he did, there would be no denying that he was a murderer. However, deep down, he knew he would find an excuse. After all, he was good at making excuses, wasn't he? Hunched over and sobbing as he walked, Jude admitted something to himself that his classmates thought was impossible.

Jude Mercedes (Boy #11) was scared.

* * *

Amber Prescott (Girl #13) glanced over the sand dune that she and Shyla had managed to form from the rough and bedrock sand. Aside from breaking several of her fingernails, Amber had been exhausted from making the barricade and was now in no condition to defend herself; from Adrienne Spring or anybody else.

Glancing over to the other side of the beach, Amber saw that the three other girls, Adrienne included, busily stacking up wood into a lopsided, splintery pyramid under the blazing sun. _Were they making a shelter? _Even though they were fairly far away, Amber could still make out the shadowy figure of Victoria Jenkins, staring at them like she expected them to do something. The very thought made her shiver. How could somebody like Victoria, who was completely good-natured and warm, end up being a mental victim of the competition? Along with that, how could all five of them now be playing a strange version of "capture the flag", on a beach. However, there would be no second game; the punishment for losing was death.

"I think Adrienne wants it to be a war", Shyla sighed, kneeling behind her against the dune. "She lives for this. She wants to watch us all kill eachother".

Shaking sand out of her hair, Amber put up the hood of her pink parka, causing her to be baked like a boiling onion from the sun blazing over the beach. "Do you think there's any chance of getting Erin and Victoria to come over here?"

Shyla shrugged. "Victoria's lost it, and I don't know what the hell Erin is thinking. I think she feels safe with Adrienne. Either way, Victoria and Erin are both kind of alike; neither of them want to die".

"None of us want to die", Amber concluded. "All forty-two of us…"

"_Thirty-seven_ as far as we know", Shyla butt in. "I'm sorry, but it's the truth".

Shyla's words hurt, even though no physical damage had been done. Unknowingly, she had just completely insulted the memory of their five dead classmates.

Amber glared. "That was really uncalled for".

"I'm sorry. Amber".

Twirling her plump finger in the sand, Shyla crumbled it against her fingers, letting it drip down like a handcrafted hourglass. The sand dripped down onto the beach, passing like flowing time…

"_The sands of time are ticking_", Amber thought, thinking of the collar strapped around her neck. "_Three days until it's all over_…"

"Would you mind if I asked you something?" Shyla asked, in no more than a quiet whisper.

Listening to the sound of Adrienne building her shelter of splintery sticks on the other side of the beach and the waves crashing against the shore, Amber nodded.

"Well", Shyla began. "Am I really just the token fat friend of the popular girl? Am I just that fat girl who happens to be friends with the head cheerleader? Y'know, the one that everyone becomes friends with just to get to know the cheerleader".

Amber sighed. "I hate being that popular cheerleader".

"That's not the point, though. Is that what you think of me as?"

For a second, the question caught Amber completely off-guard. In fact, when she answered it, she hardly knew what she was talking about.

"If God gives you money and some good looks", Amber said, almost thinking aloud. "You're instantly popular nowadays; you're usually a cheerleader, too. It's almost a stereotype, and it's not what I want everyone to think of me as. Sometimes, I wonder if God would make me ugly and poor, just to keep everyone away from me. I hate how everyone sucks up to me just to become popular. That's all I am to everyone; a way to get popular. I think that's all I was to Victoria and Erin, too".

Shyla glanced up. "And me?"

Amber smiled, finally letting her eyes water with tears. "You're not my token fat friend, Shyla. You're my only real friend".

Shyla nodded, apparently satisfied. That was what struck Amber as odd; Shyla didn't look overjoyed. She merely looked satisfied.

"Were you hoping for more?" Amber joked, breaking the awkward silence.

"No", Shyla sighed. "It's just that I was thinking about how popularity really wasn't what Adrienne was after…"

Even though it had happened merely hours ago, the actions of Adrienne Spring (Girl #17) still shocked Amber. Ever since she had joined her clique, Amber had generally tried to ignore her. In almost every situation, Adrienne would somehow make it so Amber looked like the bully. Whether it was making Mae Yamamoto (Girl #20), who now rested in peace, cry, or make Meyerhold Zemeckis (Boy #21) trip in the hallway, Adrienne had made Amber look like a popular bully.

In the end, it had all served one sinister person.

"Do you think we should make a run for it?" Amber asked. "Out of the beach?"

They had only attempted to leave the beach once, and almost instantly now, they realized it wasn't a very good decision. Despite the fact that they had the Colt pistol, the beach was the most secluded location on the entire island; even though they were at risk from Adrienne Spring at every second, it was the safest place on the island for them.

Shyla shook her head. "Bad idea. We didn't write down the Danger Zones; this entire area could be dangerous beyond the beach right now".

Almost immeadidly following her words, Shyla moaned and lay back against the sand dune. Her forehead was a mess of sweat and almost looked as wet as the tropical waves hitting the shore; obviously, her migraine was showing no signs of stopping.

"You can rest, Shyla", Amber said. "I'll keep watch on Adrienne and everyone else".

Nodding bitterly as her plump body rolled over, Amber forced a smile at her friend one last time before she glanced over the sand dune. The pistol was lying in the sand between the two girls; their only protection against Adrienne Spring.

"_I'm a prisoner_", Amber thought. "_Not just on this island, but on this beach_…"

She could try to go to sleep, but it was no use. Her dreams would be filled with the voice of giggling girls she didn't know, all sitting at her lunch table like they were best friends. Amber had been having these nightmares for years, and it all boiled down to her fear of having started her horrible clique of cheerleaders.

"My only friend", Amber said, matter-of-factly. "Is Shyla Ryals".

Shyla, struggling to sleep from the pounding headache, stirred slightly but didn't say anything. Far away on the other side of the beach, Adrienne's voice, still chewing her bubble gum, started to whisper darkly. The still silence beyond that showed Amber that Erin and Victoria were listening and completely attentive. Whatever Adrienne said, they would act it like she was a God; they completely trusted her and there was no saving them now. In fact, there was no saving anyone.

* * *

"Damn".

Winston Van Buren (Boy #19) sweared angrily as he slammed the door of the red and rusty Lexus. Even though there seemed to be a graveyard of deserted cars on Main Street, so far, none of them seemed to have any keys in the ignition. Even if they did have keys, the engine had been artfully bent and torn out, almost like the inspectors of the program had expected their first thought to be transportation.

With a car, just a car, Winston would be able to find Demi Marigold (Girl #7). If anyone tried to hurt him when he was driving, well, they would simply have to get the hell out of the way.

However, despite his best efforts, Winston hadn't found one working car on the entire island. In his mind, he pictured the officials in charge of the game laughing with dozens of torn engines and keys covering the floor; _along with Demi's body._

"_No!" _Winston thought instantly. "_How the hell did I let that thought in my head? Demi's alive; she wasn't in the announcement, right_".

However, the image of the missing keys, engines, and Demi's body wouldn't leave his mind. Deciding to ignore it, Winston roared angrily, kicking the shiny side of the Lexus that was being illuminated by the bright morning sun. Almost instantly, he felt his foot throbbing, instantly causing him to yelp in pain; _he had idiotically bruised his own foot by kicking a car_.

But he wasn't an idiot.

Winston had to keep repeating that to himself. No matter what, the incident with the skinhead who had harassed him kept coming back into his mind. The way he had called him a, "dumb nigger", hadn't just insulted him racially; it made him truly even worse than when he had been held back. If it was race the skinhead was after, why did he pick on Winston in general? There were tons of other kids from other racial groups in Spanish Rivers; Victoria Jenkins (Girl #4) was Black too, Mae Yamamoto (Girl #20) had been Asian and Miguel Chavez (Boy #3) was Spanish. Why had that racist bully _only_ settled on Winston?

These were the questions that sometimes kept Winston up at night. That was why he needed to find Demi Marigold; she could help him find these mysterious answers.

As he gently massaged his foot, he was nearly startled to death when he saw another face staring at him through the mirror of the passenger seat. Because Winston was on the other side of the car, beside the window near the driver's seat, it was like looking through a two-way mirror from hell. He was kneeling against the front door of the car; he only saw the face for a split-second in the corner of his eye.

"_Jesus_…"

For one second, Winston was split between several ideas. One of them was that it was Demi Marigold, but that was too good to be true. However, it could have also been someone trying to kill him, and that was what made Winston tighten the grip on his switchblade, nearly feeling it cut into his palm.

"I see you", Winston breathed, kneeling down and too scared to look at the passenger window again. "What do you want?'

"Winston?"

It was a soft and sleek voice; definitely, a girl's. It reminded Winston of creamy and soft butter. Not wasting a second, Winston instantly sprung up and glanced through the car's interior to the next window.

"Demi?" he asked hopefully.

However, it wasn't. For one thing, Demi didn't have green and spiky hair, along with red and fiery contacts that clashed slightly with her tan and bronzed face. While Demi's lips were pursed and thin, the strangers were bulky with black lipstick.

It was Mare Ewing (Girl #3); the thief of their grade who had been shot in the leg in the classroom. Slightly cautious, she began to walk around the Lexus to Winston's side, letting her red nails hiss softly against the dashboard; it was like watching a vampire with dyed hair and makeup.

"Oh, hi Mare…"

Mare raised her eyebrow, batting a green strand of hair out of her eye. "Disappointed? Were you expecting? A date or something?"

"Sort of".

Mare rolled her eyes. "Well, God had pity on you and sent Mare Ewing instead. Anyway, it's a good idea to get the hell out of here. It's 8:20 and this whole street becomes a Danger Zone in fifteen minutes. I was walking by, and I thought I would take the time to save your head from being blown off

Winston, still slightly disappointed, merely shrugged. "Thanks, I guess".

Glancing down at her leg, Winston saw that she was limping quite badly. In fact, judging by how often she was cringing, she seemed to be in a great deal of pain. _Had the bullet wound been infected?_

"How's your leg?" he asked.

Mare rolled her eyes, glancing down at the wound. "I used up all my water bottles trying to stop the bleeding. It sucks, doesn't it? Out of all the people that could have been hit by that bullet, it had to be me. The bleeding stopped, but I can't feel my leg….":

Studying Mare, Winston wondered what her angle to playing the game was. It was widely known in their grade that Mare suffered from kleptomania; she lived off stealing things from people. In fact, there were rumors Mare had robbed the local 711 six times without being caught. Along with that, her sarcastic and cynical personality was annoying. In the game, however, she was unpredictable.

"Have you met anyone?" Winston asked.

Mare nodded. "I've been trying to find Roxy".

Winston nodded. Roxy Patterson (Girl #12) and Mare had always been good friends, despite their very different personalities.

"But I ended up seeing some other people instead", Mare continued. "I saw Miguel Chavez and his group walking up to that giant pink mansion across from the lagoon. It was before Enrique died, because he was still walking with David and Miguel. I hid; I'm not sure why, but I don't trust any of them. Maybe I'm just prejudiced since they all seem kind of tough. After that, I walked up the hill and saw Lea. I tried to call out to her, but I don't think she saw me. She was carrying a golf club…"

"Mare", Winston butt in. "I'm scared…"

It had come out of nowhere from inside him, and he had never seen it coming. It must have seemed odd to Mare. Somebody big like him, who was actually a year older than her, seemed more confused and terrified than she did.

Mare forced a smile, showing her black tongue piercing. "I know. Sort of numbs the fact you're going to die in three days, huh?"

Slightly annoyed by Mare's comment, Winston found himself continuing. It was almost like he wasn't even talking to Mare anymore; he was almost talking to himself.

"I want Demi", he began, and feeling like a kindergartner, his eyes began to tear. "She understands me; we understand each other. I don't care if I die; I want to die kneeling next to Demi. How easy would it be, Mare? How easy would it be to just sit down, go to sleep right now, and ignore the sound of your collar beeping when this sector becomes a Danger Zone. Y'know, you'll just be looking at the clouds until it happens…"

Mare stared at the clouds, almost like she was considering the outcome. "I'd rather die fighting…"

"I think I would, too", Winston sighed. "But how easy would that be, though? Die looking at the clouds?"

Whistling thoughtfully, Mare turned her gaze away from the sky and looked back at Winston, almost studying him. It was the same gaze she always got in school, Winston had noticed, whenever she was going to steal something; it was uncontrollable fascination.

"I'll help you find, Demi", Mare said, matter-of-factly. "But the moment I find Roxy, you're as important to me as those stupid clouds you keep rambling about".

Winston grinned through his tears. "It just goes to show you. The only one that really gets me is Demi".

Mare cocked her eyebrow sarcastically. "You guys must have fascinating dates. Are clouds really the kind of things you talk about?"

Slightly satisfied that he had a partner for the game, even if it was somebody like Mare Ewing. Glancing down at her watch, Mare's eyes lit up.

"_8:43_. Let's get the hell out of here".

Turning her spiky green head around, like an obscure plant, Mare hurriedly began to walk away like she was the automatic leader. However, before she had even passed the Lexus, she turned around and grinned. Out of merely nowhere, she flicked a switchblade up to her face; Winston's switchblade, specifically.

"I'm good, aren't I?"

With that, she threw the switchblade back to Winston and casually began to walk away, limping in pain. Winston, still with a foggy mind, had no other choice but to follow the girl who had somehow just stolen his weapon from him without him noticing.

* * *

**No Students Eliminated**

* * *

**36 Students Remaining**

* * *

**I hope you remembered Winston Van Buren (Boy #19), who was looking for Demi Marigold back in the beginning of the competition. It's not that I forgot about him, but I just didn't know how to fit him into the story again. Oh, and since Demi is still alive, she will eventually make an appearance in the story. **

**Winston's chapter when he was first introduced, which I'm pretty sure is Day 1: Hour 3, has been re-written to introduce his character better. I was kind of sick when I was writing that chapter and wasn't really trying, so I thought it was fair to go back and make his little bit in that chapter better. Anyway, check it out.**

**Wow, every character, besides Perry Rumbaugh, Leana Devora, and June Harrison, have somehow come into the story. Even though Risa Ridgeway was in the classroom (remember her yelling about Kevin Hashburg?) she hasn't really been in the competition yet; don't worry, you'll see her again soon too. As for the three other girls that I mentioned above, they're all actually good friends that come in together later on Day One.**

**I like Darren. He's creepy to write.**


	11. Day 1: Hour 9: 36 Students Remaining

Peter Juntz (Boy #9) shuddered, batting the hair of his blonde wig, as he glanced out across from the equipment shed. Being on the opposite side of the school from where Sadie and Nicole had been digging, he had plainly seen what had happened. The moment he saw Darren Warner (Boy #20), and the disturbed look in his eyes, he was prepared to sprint through the schoolyard and save the girls. However, the moment he set foot on the schoolyard, his collar would detonate and their plan would be ruined. Nicole's hand clawing at the top, only to be swept away in a sea of dirt replayed in his mind.

Nicole Zaun (Girl #21) hadn't done anything wrong. She was studious and took her grades seriously, valued close friends like Sadie, and was generally a nice person who accepted everyone. _How could she fall victim to this game?_

Even though he felt deep pity for Nicole, he was relieved when he saw Prudence beat the blunt end of the rake into Darren's skull, knocking him unconscious, quickly un-dig her delirious sister, and took off. Peter was going to call out to them, but decided not to; he didn't trust them, mainly because he didn't trust their brother. _He always had a strange look in his eyes…almost like he was waiting for something better to happen…_

Merely half an hour after Sadie and Prudence fled, Darren had awoken and rambled off, not even noticing Peter standing at the opposite border beside the school.

Now, tying a thick knot in the rope, he glanced over at the Igolovosky twins, who were both digging a hole. For a second, the face of Nicole Zaun, who had dug her own grave, flashed on theirs, but the moment passed; Peter had more than enough rope in the equipment shed to get them both out if something happened.

"You won't have to dig much farther on the first hole", Peter called reassuringly. "You can start on the second, soon!"

Even though his head was hidden, Peter could tell Travis Igolovosky (Boy #7) was glaring. "Sorry, it's just a little hard knowing we're assisting your suicide!"

"It's not suicide, Travis!" Peter called back defensively. "It's a kamikaze!"

"I know where you can put your _kamikaze_!" Travis's voice snapped back. "It's deep, dark, and the sun never-

The voice of Tristan Igolovosky (Boy #8) abruptly butt in. "Shut up, Travis. Keep digging and maybe you'll learn something".

The sound of the shovels scraping against the dirt broke into Peter's thoughts, causing him to miss a loop on the knot. However, he knew that wasn't what was troubling him.

Their whole plan was full-proof; _take the leftover dirt from digging the holes and cover the school yard enough to mess up the radio transmissions of the collar. I'll walk over while I'm tied to a rope soaked in the chlorine we found in the equipment shed. We fill the pits we dug with kerosene oil and chlorine and light a match. The school explodes into thousands of pieces, along with me. Peter Juntz leaves the world knowing I died for everyone else's sake the moment the match reaches my collar…_

However, the more he thought about it, there could be a way to formulate the plan without him dieing at all. They could find something flammable and simply tie it to the rope and throw it toward the school like a bomb; _after that, they could all escape._

But that wasn't what Peter wanted. Deep down, he was ready to die. He wanted to be that bomb. After all, he was tired of being lost. He was tired of being so lost that he had to cross-dress with a blonde wig just to turn his life around; it was time to be rescued from wandering aimlessly through the woods he had been lost in all of his life.

Letting the rope fall to the ground, Peter sighed and lay down to the side of the equipment shed. Crouching down quietly, he reached into the pocket of his skirt and pulled out a pack of cigarettes and a cheap lighter. He wasn't a very strong smoker, due to the fact his grandfather had died of lung cancer, but it helped calm his troubles often. Feeling the ashy smoke run down his throat, he exhaled deeply, blowing out smoke like a train whistle.

"_You're ready_", a voice in his head kept saying. "_This was your decision, Peter_. _Everyone will be free when you die. Tristan. Travis. And not just them. Mitch Kelley, Adam Spencers, and everyone else that you care about_".

Taking another inhale of the cigarette, Peter glanced up at the school. Inside, he knew, government officials were running around eagerly and filing out their papers; the body count and files that the murder of a class from Spanish Rivers High took place. He struggled to see anybody through the school window from the distance….

_And he did_.

Nearly gagging on the cigarette smoke, Peter coughed out ash as he pulled his blonde wig out of his face, almost trying to make sure he was seeing what he was seeing.

Reynold Burke smiled in the window like a demon behind a broken window pane, making him look like his grin had been painted there. His beardy stubble decorated his face like little ants, making him look like he was the type to go home and beat his wife when this was over. The program instructor surveyed the knotted rope on the ground beside the equipment shed, followed by the hole the Igolovosky twins were digging eagerly. They, of course, could not see him from the pit. Burke looked strong and powerful; Peter was scared of him.

In Burke's hand was a thick gray square which seemed to have a red trigger on it. Pointing it out the window, it took Peter a second to realize he was pointing it at his collar. It was a trigger to detonate the collars.

The facts were short and simple: Burke was going to blow his head off for attempting to escape.

Peter yelped, spilling his box of cigarettes out across the ground beside the equipment shed. Burke pointed the gray box at him, but still he didn't do anything. Peter rolled to the other side of the equipment shed, but would that do anything? _Could the transmission still reach him even through the window and that far?_

Shivering in fear, Peter watched as Burke winked slyly from the window like he was a clown at a children's birthday party. Then, still pointing the detonator at Peter's collar, he did something unpredictable.

He laughed.

Staring out the window, Burke laughed and laughed, knowing Peter was at his mercy. Slowly, he craned his beefy neck, turning around with a half-hearted salute that sent chills down Peter's spine. And with that, Burke vanished, walking away from the window.

"_He's taunting me_", Peter thought. "_He's not going to let me do the kamikaze. He knows I'm planning something…He's trying to scare me…God, our lives are at the mercy of this monster…_

"Peter!" Tristan's voice called from the pit. "What's going on up there? I thought I heard you scream!"

Shaking in terror, Peter picked up a cigarette from the ground and lit it with his trembling hands, letting the smoke drift down his throat. Then, with his trembling red nails, he continued to knot the rope.

* * *

Prudence Mercedes (Girl #8) sat cross-legged on top of the small and rocky hill.

Even though she had been angry all her life, she was letting it consume her now. Every inch of her entire pore breathed fire, directed at one objective. She had to mellow it, because she knew her anger, her brutal strength, was uncontrollable; it could even drive her to do something like play the game. However, she was quick thinking and good at analyzing situations, and with luck, she knew she could survive for one more hour; maybe even one more day to get back at the fucking government. Occasionally, she would even get into fights at school when her anger ran out of control; it was her indirect way of fighting the tyranny the country was in.

In fact, getting back at the government was all that mattered to her now.

While Prudence's eyes were full of emotion, quick thinking and strong like a swift fox, her sister, who was sprawled out in front of her, had lost every sign of life in her eyes. Even though she was clearly still alive, she looked like a broken person; the eyes of Sadie Mercedes (Girl #9) stared forward blankly, almost like she had no soul. After managing to drag her away from the hole, over Darren's unconscious body, she definitely hadn't been the same.

"I want _Nicole_", Sadie said, matter-of-factly.

For a second, Prudence was going to calm her again. However, there was nothing she could do now; she had to be brutally honest to snap her sister back to reality.

"Sadie, Nicole is dead. She's buried under a mountain of dirt. I'm so sorry, but it's the straight truth. She's dead and she's never coming back".

Sadie whimpered, but still, there was no emotion in her eyes. Unlike Prudence, who was hardened and kept to herself, Sadie had a very hard time containing her emotions; she had even cried once during a test for forgetting a pencil and had to be escorted home. However, that wasn't the only thing about the two. Prudence was muscled and athletic; she was the star player on the volleyball and lacrosse teams and it was highly evident she was getting a sport scholarship. Sadie, having anorexia, could hardly hold her own weight, nonetheless even catch a Frisbee.

Jude, on the other hand, had nothing in common with them. Even though they were related, he was a mystery to both of them. He would come home, do his homework, and spend hours in his room until he went to sleep. For awhile, Prudence worried that Jude suffered from a disorder, but that wasn't the case; he was one of the smartest students in their class. He was just strange.

"I've been thinking", Prudence began. "We should find Jude and leave the island. We'll kill Burke, disable the collars, build a boat, and escape".

Sadie shook her head, still staring into space. "_There's no winner_…"

Prudence stared. "What?"

"There's no hope. I bet they take the last contestant, take them behind the school, and shoot them in cold blood. No matter what, there is no winner. Nicole was a winner. She died…"

Almost like a re-animating corpse, Sadie sprung back to life. Her formally blank eyes were now filled with brimming anger as she glanced down at the ground. In fact, the change as so sudden even strong Prudence was startled.

"I'm digging her up!" Sadie protested. "We'll go back to the hole and dig her up and give her a proper burial".

"Sadie…no offense, but would there really be any point in digging her up if we're just going to bury her agai-…"

"_Shut up_!"

Sadie struggled to slap her sister against the face, but suddenly, her stomach was overcome with one of her horrible bulimic cramps, causing her to wrench over in agony. It pained Prudence to see Sadie's anorexia kick in. It made her feel like she didn't even know her sister. Staring worriedly, Prudence watched as Sadie, struggling to hold back her vomit, glanced up like a frightened kitten.

"_Nobody wins_", Sadie muttered. "Even if you get off the island, nobody wins".

Prudence nodded, bitterly. "You never win if you're a Mercedes, huh?"

As horrible as the situation was, Sadie found herself laughing bitterly, sniffling up her tears. "I always thought you were the reason I didn't have any friends…"

"I always thought you were the reason I didn't have any…"

Sadie shrugged. "I wonder what Jude thinks".

The more Prudence thought about it, the more she was scared. Her own brother could be playing the game; he could have been the one that had killed Mae and everyone else that had fell victim to the competition that the horrible government had thrown them into.

As long as she could remember, Prudence had felt tightly packaged in a box, always forced to do whatever the government told them. Her protesting was often what landed her in detention, and occasionally juvenile hall. She would lift weights, building up her muscles, staring into space as she pictured the faces of government officers being crushed under her like termites. However, while she was generally the, "manly she-bitch", to her classmates and always felt angry, she was now feeling something else: fear.

"I'm scared of what Jude thinks", Prudence admitted. "But-

"Prudence, did you like any of the _guys_ in our class?"

It was such an out-of-place question for the situation that Prudence thought for a second that she hadn't heard her properly. How could Sadie be talking about dating when their heads were going to explode in three days?

"Excuse me?'

Sadie shrugged. "Never mind. I was just thinking about how most of our class isn't going to be around tomorrow morning…"

It was true. As much as they had to plan, Prudence felt like compelled to honor her classmates. It was a strange memorial service; six dead and thirty-five to go. Clearing her throat, Prudence shrugged.

"I always thought Tristan Igolovosky was good-looking. He was nice too, even if his brother is a bigot. Zane Barrens is good-looking, but he has J.C Brooke".

Sadie sighed. "That's the whole thing. I never really looked at guys. I always sucked-up to Amber Prescott and never really looked around to see anything else. All I cared about was being popular, which I never really became".

Prudence nodded. "I understand".

Wiping off the dirt and blood from her fingernails, Prudence stood up boldly. She had to look impressive in front of Sadie, because Sadie had to be scared of her. It was the only way to make sure she obeyed every order Prudence said.

"I'm tearing up the government, Sadie", Prudence snapped. "I'm tired of being in a box. I'm turning it into a big circle; one with no sharp edges where you have to follow rules. I want only curves". Feeling herself trembling, her anger consuming her, she reached down at Sadie, her arm outstretched. "So we're tearing up this messed up game and finding Jude. Are you with me?"

Sniffling, Sadie, her face a mess of vomit, dirt, and tears, glanced up at her sister; her protector throughout the game. Struggling not to think about Nicole, not wanting to take a horrible trip down memory lane about bathroom stalls and anorexia, Sadie put of her hand.

'I'm in".

Prudence nodded. It was time to let her anger out on the one thing that mattered.

* * *

"We're going to make you talk, _boy_!"

Zane Barrens (Boy #1) sweared angrily through the duct tape across his mouth, but he was unable to talk back to Chris Barrister (Boy #2). His long blonde hair, which he had said nearly five times that he had proudly not cut for football, was flowing in the wind like some kind of Greek God as they walked beside the jagged cliffs in Sector B1. At his side, Eddie Dunnerman (Boy #4) clenched one duct-taped arm tightly while Preston Tracy (Boy #18), the mascot of the football team, struggled to hold Zane's left arm with his weak and brittle muscles. Occasionally, Chris would turn around and shove him, leaving Preston to do nothing in return.

"Let's just push him off the cliff", Eddie whined. "I'm tired of carrying him".

Chris shook his head, batting his blonde hair. "Once he admits that he killed everyone, we'll shoot him in the face".

Preston looked confused. "We don't have any guns…"

Once again, Chris turned around furiously and struck Preston across the face, causing him to nearly drop Zane off the shaggy cliffs they were walking across. However, he managed to regain his balance quickly and continue walking; for Preston Tracy, it was just another bruise from his abusive leader. Thinking how he had verbally abused Skylar as the leader of their gang, Zane shuddered; he was no better than Chris.

"Nobody asked you, mascot! Just shut up!"

Craning his neck, Chris glared at Zane. The duct tape was wet from him continually yelling furiously, causing the saliva to drip through. Whistling thoughtfully, he reached over, slowly peeling the tape off; it stung, ripping off every small hair across his lip.

"_Mmmm_!" Zane screeched in pain, unable to say anything. "_Hmmmm_!"

Finally, the tape completley peeled off, Zane took a gulp of air before spitting at Chris's athletic sneakers. Expecting the awaiting punch, it didn't numb the agony of his chin throbbing when Chris's fist finally came. Blood dripped out of his mouth and he had bitten his tongue. His entire mouth was throbbing.

"_Asshole_!" Zane roared, gulping the air. "Go die, you f-

Chris shook his head. "Tsk-tsk. Such profanity from somebody who already has enough guilt on his conscious to be upset about it. So, how did you kill Mae, Zane? Did you have your way with her when you were done?"

"You're disgusting, man", Zane spat.

"Or do you swing the other way? Did you have a wild time with Skylar after you drugged him and he died?"

Preston glared. "Leave him alone, Chris. He's tired".

"If he was tired, he'd be asleep, Preston", Eddie snapped. "Does he look asleep, to you? I thought so. Of course, you could always go to sleep forever, Zane. One little slip is all we need to send you off those cliffs. We'll send his playgirl girlfriend with him when we find her".

Almost instantly, Zane's rage was magnified so much he instantly slipped out of the grip of Eddie and Preston, covered in duct tape and squirming like a worm beside the cliff. Right before he fell to the ground, he managed to bite Eddie's ear, feeling the skin slightly puncture

"Don't you _dare_ call J.C that!" Zane screamed, struggling to wiggle out of the duct tape. "You know nothing about her!"

And that was what triggered the torture.

Without warning, Chris kicked him in the ribs, painfully causing his stomach to become bruised. He howled in pain, nearly rolling off the cliff, when Eddie kicked him in the face. Almost instantly, a hard numbness spread across his mouth, followed by the taste of warm blood that dripped out with white cubes; _teeth._

Zane sputtered out teeth and blood, gagging in the duct tape as his sobs punctured horribly with the sound of Chris and Eddie laughing. Preston, meanwhile, was standing in the background with his hands over his ears, obviously not wanting to get involved.

"I'm sorry!" his voice kept screaming. "They don't know any better! _I'm sorry_!"

Finally, with the final tooth falling out, Zane counted the dental bill; six teeth. Eddie Dunnerman (Boy #4) had knocked out six of his teeth. He looked like an old man. However, for somebody with such a vague perception of life, he knew this look suited him; maybe he could even relate to it if he tried hard enough.

"I think this taught him a lesson!" Chris snapped. "No more struggling, Zane. Pick him up guys; we're going back to camp".

Even though he could have fought that moment again, Zane chose to keep the rest of his teeth. The pain in his bruised stomach was so unbearable, he considered for a second rolling out of their grip and off the cliff. However, that was pointless; J.C would have nothing else to live for and nobody to protect her.

Somehow, just somehow, he would find a way to escape the group of football players and the lone mascot. _He wound find J.C, along with Rory, and repay them for what he had done. To repay Jesse and Skylar…_

The thought was the only thing keeping Zane going now. The four of his friends and him, all around Mitch Kelley arguing on a schoolyard, seemed eternities ago. After all, since he now had the look of an old man, it well could have been.

Still sputtering out a string of blood that hung from his lips, Zane gave a toothless grin that stung his anger. "Hey Barrister! I'm not sure why, but I have this burning passion inside to kick your ass".

Chris laughed. "That's natural. In fact, you'll probally get used to it after awhile".

And with that, the blood trickling out of his broken mouth, Zane fainted in the arms of Preston and Eddie with the last image in his mind Chris's chuckling face.

* * *

_Meyerhold Zemeckis stepped out of his mother's SUV with his lunchbox, covered in stickers of action figures and cartoons, clutched in his small hand. Normally, the Zemeckis family would be driving a sporty Lexus instead of the van, but recent financial troubles had caused them to sell their favorite car; the troubles had also caused them to send Meyerhold away from private school to a public one._

_Even though he was in sixth grade now, Meyerhold didn't even know that he was actually immature for his age. He had been raised in a nice private school where everybody was accepted; he had no perception of popularity or maturity. All he understood was that everyone wanted to be his friend. Everyone wanted to be everyone's friend._

_Unknowingly, Meyerhold was sheltered from the truth about the outside world._

"_Have a good day at school, honey"._

_Mrs.Zemeckis smiled at her son in the middle of the parking lot, hugging him tightly in her old and withered arms, almost like old silk. She had a volcanic complexion of acne on her face, which Meyerhold shared, especially on the bridge of his curved nose._

"_Thanks, Mom", Meyerhold said brightly._

_His mother never broke he smile. "This will only be for a little while until your father works everything out in court. After that, you'll be able to go back to St.Bloomingdale's"._

"_Henry's birthday is coming up", Meyerhold chirped in. "I want to move back to St. Bloomingdales just in time for this party"._

"_I'm sure you do. Just wait a little awhile and soon, we'll be able to move back. Oh, and I packed your lunch; peanut butter and jelly with no crusts and a cup of soup"._

"_And fruit snacks?"_

_His mother nodded. "Two bags. I know how you like them so much"._

_Hugging her son one final time, Mrs.Zemeckis tightened her pink bonnet around her gray hair and quickly hobbled back into her van. She was limping; after falling down the stairs several years ago, she was no longer as active as she had been before. _

_Watching his mother drive away out of the parking lot, Meyerhold felt his excitement bubble up inside him as he looked at his new school. Many students were lounging in the courtyard, all talking excitedly. He would meet so many friends, just like his mother had said, because his mother was never wrong! This would be just like St.Bloomingdale's; how could public school be any different than his nice and sheltered private school?_

_As Meyerhold walked up lopsidedly to the school courtyard, he became aware that several students were beginning to laugh as he approached. That was great; they were just as eager as he was._

_Walking into the courtyard and not even aware of the laughing at his cartoon-character lunchbox, sixth-grader Meyerhold Zemeckis spotted a group of students laying in a tight circle on the lawn, all wearing black and laughing at some kind of joke. At that point, Meyerhold wasn't even aware that he was the punchline._

_Walking up, he sat down in the circle like he was already invited into their conversation. _

"_Hi! I'm Meyerhold!"_

_However, for some reason, all taking stopped immeadidly as all five of the students stared blankly at him. One of the two girls in the group, one with hair dyed streaks of black and red, giggled._

"_Meyerhold! What kind of a stupid name is that?"_

_Meyerhold smiled, unaware she was making fun of him. "I'm named after a foreign philosopher my parents like. What's your name? Maybe we'll be able to be friends!"_

_The girl smirked, flexing her knuckles. "Sure, we'll be best friends"._

_Needless to say, Meyerhold Zemeckis didn't get to eat his fruit snacks that day. After pummeling him to the ground with merely one fist, the redheaded girl had strung him to a flagpole and sent him hurtling up by using the pulley rope; she had even cut some of his skin trying to tie the pulley of the rope onto his belt. Shortly before his departure into the air, Meyerhold had learned the girl's name was something with initials: K.C?_

_Three hours later, as Meyerhold dangled above the schoolyard with the fire department trying to cut him down as the other students watch in amusement, he let his tears fall down his face, leaking down to his chin and dripping down twenty-feet to the front lawn._

_Mrs.Zemeckis had been wrong._

_Slowly, as the years continued at middle school, Meyerhold had stopped talking to others. His grades had declined, and slowly, he had become completely withdrawn all together. Often at night, his mother would cry; what had made her once perfect little boy like this? Meyerhold hated to see his mother sad, but he couldn't help it. At St.Bloomingdale's, even though he was horribly unathletic, the proper upbringing had caused every student there to embrace eachother; they had all been best friends. However, at Spanish Rivers High School, it was much different. Meyerhold had never heard of this strange concept of popularity._

_And every night when he cried in his room, Donald Zemeckis, his father, struggled to pay the bills that had been caused by his unsolved financial trouble in court. Obviously, Meyerhold was staying in public school for a very long time._

* * *

Meyerhold Zemeckis (Boy #21) peered through the trees, staring at the mess of cluttered cars and garbage in the junkyard in front of him.

After chasing J.C Brooke and causing her to tumble down the mineshaft, Meyerhold had wandered aimlessly, all most walking directly into a Danger Zone at one point, until finally, he had found the junk yard. The moment he had seen her, walking with her fiery red and black hair, he had no memory of what had happened; he had wanted to destroy her life as horribly as she had mangled his. However, after hearing the ear-splitting crack of her arm and her sobbing at the bottom, the regular personality of Meyerhold returned. He had considered lowering something to help her escape, but it was too risky. It partly because J.C would likely kill him right there in cold blood, and it was partly because Meyerhold didn't trust any of his classmates.

They were all mean bullies. That was what the guidance counselor at his school had forced him into calling them: _bullies._

_There was that snobby Amber and her clique of rich and spoiled girls, those nasty Mercedes children, and of course, J.C Brooke and her tight little group of juvenile deliquents…_

However, staring into the junkyard, Meyerhold realized that not all of his classmates were bad people. In fact, Peter Juntz (Boy #9) was kind and respectable and had never said one cruel comment to him. Also, Winston Van Buren (Boy #19) had always been cheerful and courteous, along with Mitch Kelley (Boy #10). Unfortunately, they had been raised in public school, so they were clearly bad people.

In the end, Meyerhold was much better than them due to his prestigious upbringing in a private school.

Being bullied had caused him to love to judge and hate. In the end of the day, it almost made him feel right sometimes. The old Meyerhold, that frightened sixth-grader with a cartoon character lunch box covered in stickers, was dead. The new Meyerhold knew everything and was much smarter than all of his obnoxious classmates that bullied him. His endless talk with the guidance counselors had shaped him into somebody who thought he was a hero in a school full of idiots. He was simply a better person than everyone.

"Public schooled bullies", Meyerhold snapped, spitting onto the ground. "_Scum_".

As he trudged away through the trees into the junkyard, his handsaw still trembling angrily in his head, Meyerhold noticed that there seemed to be leftover belongings of the families that had been evicted from the island cluttered everywhere. In a large heap, was a pile of clothes, all sprawled out and filthy like rags. Hearing a squeaking sound, Meyerhold glanced down and even saw a pacifier. Had they actually just swept in and evicted everyone that lived on this island?

Almost slipping as he walked through the cluttered junkyard, specifically Sector D7, Meyerhold was relieved when he saw a large heap of garbage bags piled into a pit. It looked very uncomfortable, and for a second, he wondered why exactly the citizens of the island buried their garbage. Maybe they were public-schooled idiots.

"_Thank God_…" Meyerhold muttered.

Even though it was uncomfortable, it was a safe place to rest and hide. Rushing over, his handsaw loosely at his side, he knelt down beside the pit and began to snuggle into the pit like it was a blanket.

However, he was completely shocked to see two terrified eyes staring back at him, along with an enormously bloated and fat face. The face seemed delirious, completely driven insane by the game, but that wasn't the important part; she had a machete. Along with that, she seemed terrified by Meyerhold. Maybe even terrified enough to kill…

"Logan?" Meyerhold said, his voice nearly cracking. "W-w-w-what are you doing here?"

Raising the machete to Meyerhold's nose, Logan Spruce's enormous body shuddered.

"_I want to live_"!

* * *

At 9: 45 AM, in Sector C8, Lea Passington (Girl #11) cringed from the blade wound in her shoulder as she stared out on top of the library like some kind of gargoyle statue. She sat quietly, chewing softly on her sawdusty bread roll and forcing herself to swallow it.

She had spent her time making lists in her head; lists of the personality flaws of every single one of her classmates. In the end, knowing every negative trait of everyone, she could now feel no emotion when she killed them; it even made her feel less guilty for killing Enrique Martinez (Boy #12) and attempting to kill Roxy Patterson (Girl #12).

_They were all weeds._

They acted like they were alive, but inside, they were dead. They had let society overcome them and were just shells pretending to be alive. All Lea was doing was cutting the dead weeds out of the garden; she was an innocent gardener and truly not doing anyone any harm. After all, as she had convinced herself, they were all rotton kids and deserved to die.

"_Amber's selfish and spoiled_", Lea thought quickly. "_Adam's whiny. Zane bullies his own friends. J.C's lazy…"_

They all deserved to die; everyone except her.

After managing to shamble away from the fight with Roxy, where she had been painfully stabbed by scissors in the shoulder, Lea had aimlessly wandered until somehow finding herself in the Cuna Cielo Public Library. It was enormous, and hopefully, there was nobody else there. In the end, Lea had decided it would be safer to open the roof hatch and hide on top of the library.

Around her, statues of gargoyles decorated the top of it like a maze, almost like demons guarding a gateway to hell. Lea didn't want to go to hell, but she would rather go there than rot in the ground for all eternity. She needed to find a religion that would make sense before she met her end. She pictured her body, rotting away and becoming part of the soil, having no conscious thoughts _forever_.

_Crash!_

The ear-splitting sound of cracking wood echoed under her, followed by the sound of pages fluttering and tearing apart. It was the sound of a bookcase falling over, and bookcases typically didn't fall over on their own. One of the weeds had found their way into the Cuna Cielo Public Library.

Gripping the golf club in her hands, still stained from the blood and brain matter of Enrique Martinez, Lea quickly shuffled back under the roof hatch, finding herself in the musty attic above the library. Creaky floorboards noisily whined under her, and she prayed softly that they would stop. Aside from several torn and tattered boxes of books, there wasn't much else in the attic.

Kneeling down, Lea's eye peered through the floorboard to see below into the library like a vulture hovering above its prey. Indeed, a bookcase had been knocked over, and the culprit was none other than Demi Marigold (Girl #7).

Her neatly cropped hair, caught in bangs on the glasses over her nose, was now tattered into a mess and her eyes seemed frantic, almost like she hadn't slept in years. Because Demi was so overly sensitive and innocent, Lea was amused that the girl she was planning to kill was actually picking the books up and stacking them messily back onto the shelf.

"_Demi is too sensitive_", Lea thought. "_She trusts too much and isn't prepared for the real world. She's a weed"._

And Lea was going to be her gardener.

However, before she could do anything, the floorboards under Lea Passington (Girl #11) whined one last time, before finally cracking apart, giving away to our weight.

_Creak…_

In an instant, Lea went falling out of the attic like a trapdoor, screaming as she felt the nasty tingle of free-fall; the feeling of dropping on a roller coaster. The ground came flying at her, almost like a wall she was flying at horizontally. Bits of debris and wood fell behind her, and even though it had seemed like an eternity, it was over in seconds.

With a horrible force pounding into her stomach, instantly stopping her descent, Lea landed roughly on the marble floor of the library. Splintery wood and dust fell above her, coating her like icing sugar as she lay. Her chest was throbbing very badly, but amazingly, she hadn't broken anything during her descent through the attic floor. Her stomach screamed at her, paining from what seemed like a piece of wood that had punctured her.

Groaning, Lea forced herself up from the floor with her golf club as a half-hearted crutch, and was almost surprised to see that Demi Marigold (Girl #7) was there. She stared at her blankly from beside the bookshelf, looking startled by how Lea had basically fallen out of the ceiling. Demi's red glasses were crooked on her nose, giving her a permanently surprised look.

"Lea? Is that you?"

She was an idiot. The weed didn't even know what lay ahead of her. Groaning pain from the stab wound in the shoulder and the throbbing on her chest, Lea roared furiously, sprung up, and swung the golf club at Demi Marigold's exposed face.

* * *

Demi's glasses shattered off her face as the golf club made a swift cutting sound that stung the air of the library like a baseball bat.

Her glasses cracked apart on the floor, crackling like icing sugar that scattered across the wet ground of the basement. Everything was a blur now, and she silently cursed her poor vision. _Why hadn't her parents bought her contacts_?

The thought was impossible; somebody was playing the game. It was impossible. After all, Demi had always believed in the positive side of everyone. When her boyfriend Winston, who had been considered an idiot by everyone, was ridiculed, she had stood up for him because there was something good about everyone. It could have been her sheltered lifestyle growing up, hardly ever socializing with the other girls because of her overprotective parents, but because of this, Demi knew nothing of bad people.

_Nobody was evil_.

But what was any positive quality of like Lea who would willingly kill her classmates?

"Lea! Stop!"

Lea Passington swung the golf club again, making a horrible swishing sound through the air. Demi sprung back, her eyes still squinting from being unable to see. The blurry figure of Lea's shoe crushing her glasses flashed in the corner of her eye as she struggled to get up; she would fix the bookshelf for the owner of the library later.

"Get back here, Demi!" Lea shrieked, almost like she expected her to do it. "Get back here so I can kill you!"

Demi scurried up and dashed down an aisle of bookcases, making a sharp turn like a bizarre maze of literature. Her weapon, clutched in her hand, was an SV 98 machine gun, but she knew she would kill nobody; even if they, like Lea, tried to kill her first.

She dashed down another aisle of bookcases, trying desperately to cut Lea off, but nothing worked; the short and spaced-out looking girl was still hot on her tail.

Through most of the game, Demi had been hiding in the library, occasionally reading to hide her fear. Unlike her classmates, Demi hated television; any show couldn't tell stories like books could. She had considered trying to find Winston, but she knew it was a lost cause; the island was enormous and she would simply have to see if they would eventually meet up. Lea Passington was the first person she had seen in the program; it wasn't a very good first impression.

Demi felt Lea swing the golf club again, this time scraping the back of her ponytail. Demi dashed down another aisle of bookcases, running into the foreign literature section. She panted, feeling her heart pounding in her chest, but she kept running, turning another corner sharply and dashing into the comedy section.

"Why are you doing this to me?" Demi shrieked, out-of-breathe.

Lea's voice was like cold ice. "Well, because you're overly-trusting, a bigot, an airhead, and completely unprepared for life, Demi. Why else?'

The end of the comedy book section was a dead end with a wooden wall glaring back at her, almost mocking her escape. Demi banged desperately on it, almost expecting Winston to sail through and save her, but sadly, nothing happened. She would need a battling ram to bust it down.

Turning around, she glanced at Lea Passington, who was marching down the comedy aisle with the golf club clutched in her hand like a lethal machine gun. Her brown hair, tattered and loosely hanging at her side, made her look like she was draped into a fur rag.

Demi backed into the door, feeling like she was going to jump out of her skin at any moment. She needed Winston; Winston was the only person that could comfort her now. She wanted to be locked in his arms, feeling his strong muscles hugging her. When she was with Winston, nobody would hurt her.

Pressing herself against the thick, wooden wall, almost trying to press her way through it like a ghost. Her sweat was pursing against her lips, trickling down her cheeks as her heart pounded like a jackhammer. It was a simple fact now: Lea Passington was going to break her head open like a melon with a golf club.

She felt the SV 98 gun in her sweaty palms, knowing she could use it whenever she wanted. _It was her life to save, but that was horrible. Demi Marigold was a nice girl, everybody said so. She couldn't kill anybody for her own survival. Nobody was evil, right?_

Before she even knew what she was doing, Demi closed her eyes, cocked the gun, and fired with such a roar that it shook her entire frail and weak body.

The bullet rebounded off the bookcase, chipping away the oak wood and blowing several comedy books to bits; it was a horrible miss. Demi had fired in the opposite direction of Lea Passington…

_The bookcase tilted…_

Realizing exactly what was going to happen, Demi didn't waste a second. With a shriek, she fired at the bookcase again, tearing away oak and spraying splinters out across the floor. She tore past the surprised small figure of Lea, shoving her out of the way. The bookcase heaved, balancing like a dancer about to do an impossible split.

"Demi", Lea roared. "Where are _you_-

The bookcase toppled over, causing Lea Passington to vanish in a mess of pages, wood, and torn and shredded books. Demi closed her ears, but there was no way she could hide her tears. She glanced back, letting her tears trickle down her cheek as she looked back at the broken wood and pages.

"Lea!"

Instantly, Demi knelt down, digging through the papers and splintery wood until she found her; Lea was alive. She was unconscious and injured-looking, but she was definitely alive; Demi could even feel her pulse, strong and alive, beating in her neck. It was amazing that a girl like Lea, who was the shortest and scrawniest in their entire grade, could take so much abuse and still be alive.

Kneeling up, and placing the gun with her trembling hands back into her backpack, Demi Marigold (Girl #7) gulped and busily rushed out of the library, shielding her eyes from the sunlight and letting the double doors close behind her, hiding her guilt.

Somebody had partaken in the program. There was evil in the world, after all. Positive qualities were nothing anymore…

When she found Winston, she knew she would be crying for a _long_, long time.

* * *

**No Students Eliminated**

* * *

**36 Students Remaining**

* * *

**Yeah, Meyerhold is obnoxious. I kind of felt bad writing about him because he was once a good person, but after he was bullied and his family lost all of their money, he grew into somebody that hated the world. Oh, and Meyerhold, J.C, and stringing him up the flagpole actually foreshadows something that will happen later in the story. It's the one chapter that I really can't wait to write. Just remember what happened to Meyerhold and the flagpole. I know it sounds really weird, but trust me; you'll love the chapter when it comes out. Judging by what's happening right now, it'll be the last chapter of Day Two.**

**If you don't remember Logan, and have no clue why she's in the garbage pit, I think she was introduced in Hour 5, where Enrique Martinez died. Check it out if you don't remember.**

**I keep thinking a fight between Lea and Darren would be really cool.**


	12. Day 1: Hour 10: 36 Students Remaining

"Help _me_!"

Logan Spruce (Girl #18) darted after Meyerhold Zemeckis (Boy #21) through the daylight of the junkyard with her pudgy eyes locked on his open back.

Even though she was like an monstrous balloon waddling when she ran, she was determined, and that was all she needed; Meyerhold Zemeckis was going to kill her and she had to protect herself, because living was all Logan had left now. She savored how her heart, clogged by fat and her clogged arteries, beat like a drum because someday, whether she lived through the competition or not, Logan wouldn't be living any more because of one problem.

Her gland disease.

Breathing hard from her weight, Logan watched as Meyerhold screeched like a monkey and dove behind a rusty car. She swung her machete at him, but somehow, the unathletic figure of Meyerhold managed to escape her grasp. He hurriedly jumped on top of the dashboard of the car, swinging his handsaw at her with his arms flailing.

"Bully!" Meyerhold kept screeching. "Bully! Bully! _Bully_!"

He swung his handsaw at her, cutting the brim of her nose lightly. It bled, but it was nothing deep; it was like a popped zip. Reminding herself to savor being cut later, Logan wobbled up to the dashboard with her belly, causing the entire car to lurch to one side.

"Get out of my junkyard!" Logan roared in her whale-belly voice. "Screw off, Meyerhold!"

His pimply face shook on top of the car, balancing himself on the rusty metal as he struggled to swing his handsaw at her. However, deep down, Logan could see he was just as terrified as her as he swung the saw with his trembling hand; _why would her murderer be frightened of his victim?_

She swung the machete again, listening to the sound slice through the air. Meyerhold's backpack was punctured instantly, spilling his water bottles and food as his pimply face lit up in horror. Without another thought, he swung off his artfully torn backpack and tossed it aside before hurriedly jumping off the top of the car and onto the dirt of the junkyard. Breathing hard, Logan followed him, still screaming in the bellow of a whale as she chased him with her machete.

_Splash…_

However, the moment she attempted to scurry off the top of the car, she slipped on the spilled water, sending her toppling down like an elephant at a circus. She landed with an enormous thud as Meyerhold, nearly ten feet away, stared at her tragically, almost like he was the victim.

"Why does everyone pick on me?" he whined, tears trickling in his eyes. "Why are you all so mean? You want to know why, Logan? You're a bully; my mom says so! You're all bullies and I should just ignore you! But even when I do, you don't stop! _Why won't you stop_?"

And with that, Meyerhold Zemeckis dashed toward the fallen body of Logan Spruce, glared furiously, and sliced his handsaw into her beefy left arm.

She wailed in pain, turning around on her bloated stomach as the yellow fat and blood began to leak out. It was a deep wound; there was no question about it. It was so deep that it would be impossible to fix. Even if it was patched up somehow, she would never move her left arm again. Before she died, she would never be able play tennis, draw a picture, or even take a test; the fact that Logan was left-handed didn't improve the situation.

The pain surged up her arm as she howled in agony. She gripped her arm, feeling the thick yellow fat beginning to drip out. She never expected the inside of her body to be this hot; the fat almost burned her hand. Her entire arm was on fire, and no matter what position she was in, it was burning in agony. It was the worst pain she had ever felt in her life.

Logan screamed into the ten-o-clock morning, almost like a whale blowing its blowhole. Meyerhold Zemeckis (Boy #21), standing above her, let a look of triumph light up his pimply face as he spit down on her.

"Go back to public school!"

As he scurried up the gray hill surrounding the junkyard, nearly slipping along the way and forgetting his torn backpack and food, Logan howled in agony as she began to nudge herself back toward the garbage pit. She had dropped her machete, but it didn't matter now. She wouldn't be able to use it with her mangled arm. Feeling the acid fat burning her arm, Logan sniffled as she realized the cold hard truth of the situation. Her worst fear had come true. No matter what, she could not win the program, now.

She was going to die.

* * *

While Logan Spruce (Girl #18) massaged her mangled arm, J.C Brooke (Girl #1) massaged her broken one as her working arm felt the rickety wall of the dark mineshaft.

After waking up, she had stayed in a fetal position, shivering at the pitch-black bottom. However, when she realized the truth that for once, nobody was going to help her, she realized that if she wanted to live, she would have to rely on her own survival skills.

Well, at least until she found a new group to take advantage of.

The more J.C thought about the more she felt like sobbing about what had become of Jesse and Skylar. Truthfully, she had never liked either of them; Skylar was a goody-goody and Jesse never listened to her orders. However, seeing that Zane had killed them was too much for her. The world of J.C Brooke had stood at a needle-tip before toppling off into darkness. Or more specifically, a mineshaft.

Zane had been her only true friend. Aside from that, he had been her boyfriend. Sure, she had been selfish, but according to J.C, boyfriends were supposed to protect their girlfriends. It was custom, and Zane couldn't violate tradition. However, seeing how he had brutally drugged and murdered two of their group members, J.C didn't know what to think anymore; Zane was a maniac.

Cringing from the pain in her broken arm, J.C's manicured fingernails scraped the side of the wall, feeling her way down the twisting tunnels of the mineshaft. Occasionally, she would come to a wet section, instantly meaning she would have to turn back unless she wanted to wander under the ocean's surface and have her collar explode, or even worse, drown slowly and painfully.

"Someone help me!" she whined. "Somebody help me, _damn it_!"

However, for the only time in J.C's life, nobody answered. She was truly on her own. Furiously, she banged her working arm into the wall, almost thinking somebody strong like Chris Barrister or smart like Peter Juntz would materialize out of thin air and accept her into their group, and eventually, get her off the island and out of the cold collar around her neck.

"Get me out of here!" J.C screamed, almost talking deliriously to the wall. "Can anyone hear me? It's J.C Brooke! I'm scared and cold and I want to go home! Somebody help _me_!"

And that was when J.C's prayers were answered by none other than God.

In the corner of her eye, a bright light began to edge out of the mineshaft. After several hours of darkness, it pained her eyes so delusionally that she almost laughed. Well, God wasn't Chris Barrister, but somehow, the Lord had answered her prayers and was going to accept her into the bright light. Even though she had never gone to church in her life, he must have had some level of sympathy for J.C Brooke if he was going to give her an escape route like this.

"_Help me_!" J.C cried, having no idea what she talking about. "God! Chris! Peter! I always liked all of you! My boyfriend's gone insane and killed my friends! My other friend ran away and I have no clue where he is! I'm scared as shit! Get me off this island!"

She banged on the bright light, feeling her hands begin to bleed from the sharp ceiling. However, she didn't stop. Laughing insanely, J.C continued to bang on the illuminated ceiling, feeling what seemed like cheap wood begin to crack uselessly above her.

"Thank you!" J.C laughed, completely delirious. "Thank you!"

There was muttering above her and J.C was sure the moment she got out through that light, she would be home in her bed again with her rock band posters above her bed; this was all a horrible dream! It all made so much sense!

"Mom! Dad! _I'm home_!"

The muttering continued until finally, the light exploded with a creaking of wood and splintery dust falling onto the mineshaft. Her fingernails, now bleeding, rested at her side with her broken arm. However, none of the pain mattered now. After all, this was all just a bizarre dream! What a stupid one, too; _a killing game_. That only happened to dorky Asians, just like Mae Yamamoto, who obviously, was still alive. _Ha-hah_.

_J.C felt her normal self finally returning_.

The light was in a square shape now, and it took J.C a minute to realize she was staring at a trapdoor. A face, serious and with a yellowish complexion, was staring back at her as her eyes were blinded by the light.

"It's J.C Brooke, guys!" the face called. "C'mon, guys it's J.C Brooke! She's in the mineshaft! I can't believe it! _In the mineshaft_!"

That was when J.C realized this wasn't her ticket home or her parents. In fact, it wasn't even God, Chris, or Peter. It was Leana Devora (Girl #2). She was staring at her blankly with a look caught between surprise and relief. It was almost like she had been waiting for somebody to pass for hours.

Before J.C could think anything else, she was wrenched out of the mineshaft and through the trapdoor into the burning light. There were wooden rafters above her and it took a minute for her to realize she was in a large barn. It was rusty-looking, old, and tattered, but it was a barn nonetheless. Below her was the trapdoor to the mineshaft which she had just magically appeared in, and likely terrified Leana.

"I can't believe it!" Leana exclaimed. "You're okay, right? I mean, we would have found you earlier but we didn't know the trapdoor hear led down to a mineshaft! I still can't believe it; there's like a whole system of underground tunnels here. I wonder why there's a trapdoor into it in the barn".

"An escape route, maybe", another voice said. J.C turned around, still dazed by the sunlight streaming through the barn, to see June Harrison (Girl #4). She was a slightly plump girl with blonde braids, along with a long and slender face. "Are you thirsty, J.C?"

J.C nodded, satifised these girls were on her beck and call. She hardly knew them, aside from the fact they were all on the same lacrosse team that J.C was the captain of. They seemed to look up to her, which was even better; they would be even more eager to get off the island. She called them the _Petting Zoo Girls_. Leana had a short and pursed face, almost like a monkey, while June had a long and lenient face like a shocked deer stopping in the headlights of a car. It was only fitting that they had hid in a barn.

"Perry Rumbaugh is in the kitchen making lunch", Leana explained. "I'll tell her to get you water or something. For a barn, this place is pretty nice; it smells like horses, but it has a kitchen and bathroom back in the corner. We sort of set up a clinic here for everyone. There's enough medicine in the pantry for nearly everyone here on the island. If anyone comes by, we decided to take care of them if they're injured".

"Like your arm", June added, cringing as she glanced at J.C's mangled wrist. "What the hell happened?'

"Meyerhold Zemeckis chased me down the mineshaft", J.C explained. "But that's nothing. Can you get me water and something for my arm?"

Almost honored that they were getting J.C Brooke, the tough girl who was the captain of their lacrosse team a glass of water, they all hurried off to the kitchen, giggling and bustling into eachother like kindergartners. When Leana was almost in the deer, she spun around, turning to J.C with her shocked-deer face.

"There's a cot where the stables are", Leana explained. "You can rest there".

Smiling as Leana hurried into the kitchen, J.C decided that she was going to win the competition. Not even a would-have-been fatal fall down a mineshaft and nearly going insane had slowed her down. After all she was J.C Brooke (Girl #1); she was invincible.

* * *

Adrienne Spring (Girl #17) lay back against the small hut Erin Thompson (Girl #19) and Victoria Jenkins (Girl #5) had built out of loose sticks and leaves, chewing her cherry bubble gum as she watched the waves settle against the sand dunes along the shore. To a ship passing by, only her collar would give away she was participating in the program instead of a day at the beach.

"I think Amber's going to do something!' Victoria shrieked, pointing across the beach. "Shyla and her keep talking! I see them Adrienne!"

Pleased with how she had paranoid Victoria's once peaceful mind and nearly lobotomized Erin's, Adrienne merely rolled her eyes as she chewed on her bubble gum, letting her toes wiggle in the briny sand. It was amusing how everybody had always thought she and Victoria were best friends, when deep down, she could hardly stand the immature Girl Scout. On the other hand, she had no feelings whatsoever for Erin, who had always brought down the group with her negative attitude. It was good to see both of these girls were now under control.

"Let them talk, Victoria", Adrienne said, "I'll protect all of you. Don't worry, if anything happens, you're all safe with me. How are you doing over there, Erin?'

Erin, who hadn't talked for ages, sat silently as she watched the waves crash against the shore. After recovering from the brick wound to her head, Adrienne had wondered if she had suffered brain damage. However, when she had discovered Erin had merely become quiet and secluded due to Adrienne's work instead of the brick's, she was more than overjoyed; it just showed what she was capable of.

"So Victoria", Adrienne said, sarcastically raising her eyebrow. "Listen to any good bands lately?"

Victoria's eyes enlarged in terror. "I think Amber's coming! I just saw her move! Oh my god, she just looked this way Adrienne! _She looked right at me_!"

Adrienne laughed, pleased what she had done to Victoria's mind. "That's a weird name for a band. I've never heard of their work. What kind of genre is their music? Rock? Pop?"

When Victoria didn't answer, Adrienne rolled her eyes and continued to chew her cherry bubble gum with her big and rosy mouth; the gum had lost its flavor nearly a day ago. The gum wasn't that different than her, who had also lost her love for anything long ago. When she hadn't been able to make friends, she had decided it would be much easier to work her way around those who had them and steal them. After all, Adrienne enjoyed toying around with people, because she knew she was truly the only true person. She wasn't sure exactly what she meant, but somehow, she knew it made sense.

The only con was that she had never gotten to know what a true friend was.

"Victoria", Adrienne ordered. "Go catch fish. You're boring to talk to and your taste in music sucks".

As Victoria hurried away, Adrienne stared at the ocean as she contemplated her plan. It was easy. Judging by the way things were going Victoria would die first, likely through mistrust or an accident because of how terrified she was, followed by Shyla Ryals. Erin, who was now an empty shell of a person, would go criminally insane after Victoria's death, and would be the one who would kill Shyla, eventually dieing as well as the entire group tore itself apart. Eventually, it would just be Amber and her, and when that happened, all of the other students would likely be dead on the entire island; she would kill Amber and win the competition.

"It's Adrienne Spring! Look, honey, it's the Adrienne girl"

"Hey Amber, sweetie! _Nice tits_!"

"Spring! Spring! Spring!"

"Kill em', Jenkins!"

Adrienne glanced up to see a cruise ship passing the shore full of occupants out on the deck. Adrienne already knew what it was. Every year, billionaires would bet on the Raising Hand Program Cruise Line that circled the entire island for three days. They would watch the competition merely yards away, betting on them the entire time. To Adrienne it just showed where society was going.

Deciding to please her fans, Adrienne rushed to the shoreline, out of the hut, and jumped excitedly onto the wet sand in and almost a war-like dance, excitedly jumping up and down. There was a war of applause on the ship, followed by the sound of somebody calling out excited bids. Even though Adrienne hardly cared, she wondered; how much money was on her?

Whistling as she walked back to the hut, Adrienne thought about how lucky she was to be so capable…

She was capable of anything.

After all, for a long time, she had been one of the bottom girls of Amber's clique. These kind of emotions hadn't settled long, especially for somebody like Adrienne. Even though her parents said she suffered from schizophrenia, split personality disorder, Adrienne knew it wasn't true; she was the only sane one in the entire group, and she was going to prove it to Amber.

In fact, she hadn't taken her pills for her schizophrenia in a very long time.

* * *

"I'm sorry for what happened", Mitch Kelley (Boy #10) said bitterly.

Terry nodded as she softly brushed the loose hair of Luke Graystone's (Boy #5) ponytail as he lay unconscious on the cot in the corner. She had spent more time fingering with the ponytail than staring Mitch in the eye; she almost seemed to shocked to talk.

"I forgive you, Mitch", Terry Klingerman (Girl #6) sighed. "I'm just too confused to talk right now…"

She spoke the word, "Mitch", with disgust, which clearly showed that she was still angry at him. Even though Mitch regret nearly strangling Luke Graystone and caving in his stomach, he didn't regret not trusting him; Terry's idea to trust everyone would only lead to both of their deaths. He could picture Burke announcing their deaths on the speaker, "_For the boys, we have (Boy #10) Mitch Kelley, and for the girls, (Girl #6) Terry Klingerman…But they're just numbers… Nobody important…And now, our cameras zoom in on the traumatized face of Adam Spencers for a close-up shot…_

Shuddering at the thought, Mitch forced himself to smile as he glanced down at Luke's sleeping body. "The bastard almost looks innocent when he's asleep, huh?"

Terry shrugged. "Everyone's innocent".

Deciding not to argue with her stupid philosophies again, Mitch gritted his teeth as he checked his cheap wristwatch. "It's _10:45_. We're safe from our collars, right?'

Terry nodded. "E6, A6, B9, and J7. I'm pretty sure we're somewhere between F5 and F4". For the first time since he had nearly throttled Luke, she turned to him, staring at him with her seussical frizzy, blonde-gray hair and a face that looked old and withered for a teenager.

"I think it's time we talked", Terry began. "I want to figure you out".

"There's nothing to figure out. I'm Mitch Kelley. I'm a freshman at Spanish Rivers High School and-

Terry shook her head. "That's not what I want to mean and you know it. There has to be a reason why you don't trust anyone and think you have to take care of everyone else. Look what you being scared of trusting leads to! Luke could have died! Something had to have happened to you, and if you won't tell me, I'll go first to make you feel better".

Clearing her throat like she was about to make an announcement, Terry began her story as Mitch opened his tired eyes with mild interest.

"It happened at my friend Cassie's birthday party when I was in fourth grade. I always felt like my parents didn't pay enough attention to me. At Cassie's house, whenever I went over, her parents all sat down with eachother at dinner and when she got home, they said hello".

Mitch nodded, thinking of his family and Adam's family; they were like two different sitcoms. Adam's was one of the happy go-lucky perfect family ones while Mitch's was one of them when you laughed at how dysfunctional they were.

"Anyway, Cassie's birthday was at the park, and when it was over, everyone was getting picked up by their parents. I waited at the curb next to the jungle gym with a pink balloon in my hand. I hate the color pink, but it was the only balloon they had. Maybe this whole story is why I hate the color even more now. I waited there for hours, and when I was the only one left, I told Cassie's mother that mine was waiting just down the street at my grandmother's house and wanted me to walk there. I just said that because I knew I wouldn't get picked up and didn't want them to know the truth …It was one of the first times my parents just forgot about me. All I ever wanted was attention. When I got home, my mom was asleep on the couch…"

Luke snored, ruining a tense moment of the story and interrupting Mitch's thoughts. He thought of the reporter incident and how he had been ridiculed after; maybe that was how Terry felt being left behind at a playground because her parents forgot about her.

I started cutting myself a _year_ later", Terry explained.

Mitch's eyes opened wide. "In fifth grade?'

"Yep, in fifth grade. I used to take a rubber band and slap myself on the wrist with it and show it to everyone for attention. Eventually, they just didn't care anymore. I started to use a knife after and sometimes cleaning alcohol and a lighter. After that, I just stopped talking and started cutting more. I forgot how to talk to people, and all I wanted was for people to notice those scars. People did, and I got help, but it only made me more depressed. J.C Brooke was right what she said before we got on the bus. I cut myself for attention. I didn't lose my faith in people, though. Everybody's innocent, Mitch. All that's wrong is that they lose track of who they are. All I want is for somebody innocent enough to pick me up from a playground…"

Mitch stared blankly. "Didn't you ever think that it was endangering your health?"

"Sure, but I never really cared. I wanted people to notice me more than I wanted to live. Anyway, when the competition started, I wandered into the post office and found a gun behind the counter. Shooting myself seemed like the only thing right to do". Suddenly, Terry's eyes lit up in regret. "Oh, we should have went inside and picked up the gun!"

"It doesn't really matter now. Darren chased us away the moment you woke up".

For a second, it looked like Terry was going to remain quiet. However, to Mitch's disappointment, she continued speaking, this time slightly triumphant.

"Okay", she said. "That was my story. Now, let's hear yours".

It was true. Terry had offered to share her experience first and now it was time for Mitch to share his. Letting the piercing on his tongue rub softly against the roof of his mouth, Mitch suddenly realized the reporter incident wasn't what had caused his misery. It had added to it, but something had happened before it.

Mitch sighed. "My dad died of skin cancer".

Terry raised her eyebrow. "Good. Now we're getting somewhere".

"Before he died, he would work really long hours and my mom would stay home. I would hardly see him; only on the weekends. He would try to make up for it by buying me things, but nothing really helped. He was more like a stranger that lived with my sister, my mom, and me only on the weekends. We didn't have a lot of money, so he had to earn a lot to support all of us. He loved us, but I felt guilty because I never knew if I loved him back. Do you know what I mean, Terry?"

When Terry didn't answer, he sighed and continued talking. Once again, Luke cut abruptly into their conversation with a loud and raspy snore that sounded like his lungs were cracking apart.

"He died of skin cancer. We went to the shore one long week to visit my cousins in the summer. There was definitely something wrong with him, and when we went to the doctor, it was definite; he was going to die. After that, my mom, of all people, became just like him. She juggled three jobs and never came home…"

Even though he had avoided it for a long time, that was the answer to Terry's question. His reason for not trusting people was because they almost always walked out on him when he actually tried to trust them. He felt like it was his need to protect his friends, because his dad had provided so hard for his family. They were the cold, black-and-white facts of Mitch Kelley's life; _there weren't any brighter colors to it at all._

Struggling to hold back his tears, Mitch glanced sadly at Terry. "I wonder if they're still alive. Remember how Burke said Risa Ridgeway's parents were killed when they protested her going here? What if my mom and my sister are dead? What if Adam is dead?"

Terry seemed to be thinking thoughtfully for a second before she answered.

"I have five half brothers who live with me and two sisters. I don't worry because there's more strength in numbers than two people. Just hope your mother and sister were smart enough not to do anything _stupid_. As for Adam, I don't know, but if he stays out of everyone's way on the island, he'll last awhi-

_Crack!_

_Twinkle…twinkle…_

Suddenly, the sound of shattering glass, followed by the sound of it softly trickling down like Christmas ornaments echoed through Mitch's ears. Almost instantly, Luke, who had been unconscious for nearly two hours, stood up almost robotically in his bed. For a second, Mitch had the horrible urge to punch the person that had caused all of their suffering in the face, knocking him unconscious again, but the moment passed; there were more important matters now.

"It came from the closet", Terry said worriedly. "Luke, you've been here longer than us. Is there a window in the closet?"

Luke, too dazed and tired comprehend anything that was happening, nodded slowly as he struggled to shake off the dizziness. "Y-Y-Yeah. There's a window above the shelves. How long have I been asleep?"

Ignoring Luke, Mitch glanced at the closet door. It was still, even stiller than the air itself, and seemed to be tempting him with the devil's finger toward it. It was almost like a door to exit the program. Whether it would be a painless exit or not, Mitch didn't know.

"Let's get the hell out of here, guys", Terry said, quickly shuffling her bag onto her shoulders. Mitch did the same, but before he could do anything, the wooden door gently swung open like the wind had blown it.

The light was flickering, the token atmosphere of a horror movie, and Mitch could hear the audience yelling behind him not to, "do anything stupid". However, that was when he realized real life was much different than a movie. The real idea of danger and death was so much more powerful than anything Hollywood could produce. Indeed, the window was shattered and glass was scattered out across the wooden floor.

Nobody appeared to be inside.

"What happened?" Luke asked, staring blankly. "Did somebody throw a rock?"

Cautiously, Mitch picked up the taser from the coffee table beside the cot and quietly began to creep toward the closet door. He may have been asking for a death sentence, but he didn't care; he wanted to die knowing which one of his classmates had gone insane. In fact, if he died, maybe his body would leave behind evidence for somebody else that hiding in the same spot was definitely not a good idea. Beside him, Terry was now creeping, backing him up with Luke who was slightly far behind and trembling in fear like a coward.

The moment he reached the doorway of the closet, his hands began to tremble as sweat began to beat down his neck. Clicking the piercing on his tongue, trying to bite back his fear, he stepped directly into the face of the wooden doorway to the closet with the broken window; a boy with a taser standing like good and evil. However, he wasn't even quite sure which side he was on yet.

"Hello?"

Almost instantly, he realized why the light was flickering; somebody had shot it and punctured the electricity on top of the bulb. In fact, the person that had shot it was standing directly in front of him in the closet.

"Holy _shit_!" Luke shrieked.

Risa Ridgeway (Girl #14) stood in the flickering light of the closet. Like always, her typical, "nice girl", smile was plastered on her face. Her brown hair, neatly parted into gentle curls, flowed down her back like a spiraling staircase. Besides being their class president, Risa was also an active member of the community. From singing Christmas carols to the elderly to picking up cans on the road, Risa was the most caring and responsible girl in their grade. Everybody loved her.

However, Mitch instantly noticed two things that were horribly wrong with her. The first were her eyes. Normally, Risa's hazel eyes were plain; the effect of being completely nice and losing any sense of mystery to her personality along the way; Risa was a boring person. However, her eyes were different now. They seemed like rolling billiard balls in her head without any sense of direction, whether physically or mentally.

The second thing he noticed was that she was holding a pistol at Mitch's chest.

"Game over, _Mitch_", she muttered, staring down at the ground.

Before he could do anything, Risa fired, revealing she hadn't cocked the gun properly. However, Mitch still couldn't move; he remained frozen in time. Almost deliriously, he fell back onto the ground.

"Mitch! Get out of the _way_!"

Mitch was so lost in his thoughts that Terry and Luke managed to pull him out of the way in the knick of time. Risa's pistol fired, this time correctly, chipping away plaster from the side of the closet door with an ear-splitting bang. However, even when he had escaped her grasp, Mitch still couldn't believe it…

_Risa Ridgeway was the nicest girl in their entire grade. She had even stood up for crippled Kevin Hashburg in the classroom. Burke had announced her parents had died, right? Had they had anything to do with this? Why would she do something so horrible?_

Terry stared like Mitch was an unknown species. "Mitch! Stop playing around! We have to get out of here!"

Mitch looked back at her desperately. "But it's Risa, Terry! Risa! Out of all people-

Luke sighed. "I know it's Risa, Mitch! I know it's horrible someone like her would do this, but you can't stop to think! You have to-

Risa stepped out of the closet into the light, revealing her face looked darker than an underground tunnel. What the _hell_ had this game done to her? This was Risa Ridgeway; their kind and caring class president who loved everyone. What could have driven her to play the game?

"Risa!" Mitch screamed. "Stop!"

She didn't listen. Instead, she fired again, barely missing the sole of Mitch's shoe. He felt the bullet rebound off the hill and stopping with a soft clatter and mist of smoke on the ground. Somehow, he managed to force himself up, with Terry and Luke's help, and regain his balance. Risa's pistol was shimmering evil light because of the sunlight shining through the kitchen window, almost making it look like their ticket to heaven.

"I'm the class president", Risa shrieked at them, completely deranged. "Did you know that?'

She fired again, this time puncturing a hole into Mitch's backpack and causing a water bottle he had left inside to puncture and began to leak out. Thanking himself for Risa's poor aim, Mitch and the two others dashed for the door, but somehow, Risa was quicker; she blocked it and cocked the gun again, ready to send any three of them on the train to the afterlife.

"I don't want to die!" Luke whined, backing into the door. "Oh Jesus, I don't want to die!"

Terry rolled her eyes, obviously trying to stay calm. "No one's dieing, Luke".

_It was the biggest lie Mitch had ever heard; forty-one of them were dieing._

Knowing Risa would fire the pistol at any minute, Mitch needed a last resort; anything would do. That was when he noticed he was still holding his useless taser that couldn't hurt anyone. It was the only thing that could help….but…

"I can't kill her!" Mitch screamed.

"Then don't kill her!" Luke snapped. "I just want to live, man! Taser her!"

The bullet fired, this time nailing into Mitch's shoe. The cut was shallow because of the thickness of the shoe that had slowed the pressure down, but it didn't stop the pain of a bullet, even if it wasn't a bad one. He yelped in pain, and almost as a strange reflex, lunged forward as Risa cocked the gun again. He swung for her arm, giving off the blue electricity of the taser as it danced around Risa's wrist. She yelped in pain, instantly dropping the gun.

"Let's go!"

Quickly picking up Risa's pistol, a new weapon to protect them, Mitch happened to forget that Risa had cocked the gun. As he reached for it, picking it up, his fingers came down on something that flexed down softly, followed by a banging sound that rattled his arm.

Mitch Kelley (Boy #10) had accidentally fired the pistol at the face of Risa Ridgeway (Girl #14).

* * *

_It was Friday the 18__th__: the day of the big football game against Pequeno Rivers and Spanish Rivers._

_Leon Mandler, a senior member of the team who was in remedial classes due to a weight room accident that scrambled his brain, had scored a touchdown during the final seconds. This had tied up the score and caused every student in the bleachers in Spanish Rivers High School to rise up and cheer like an enormous wave._

_Mitch Kelley clapped energetically in the top row of the bleachers, his mouth wet and sticky from Coca-Cola. At one side, Adam Spencers nudged against him softly, clapping as he yelled something to the Pequeno Rivers students at the other side of the field. Behind them both, Peter Juntz and the Igolovosky twins were both sitting against the splintery green upper box where Risa Ridgeway, their class president, was cheerfully announcing the results of the game to everyone through the microphone inside._

"_And that brings Spanish Rivers High to the lead!" Risa's enunciated voice shrieked over the microphone. "Congratulations, everyone! You too, Pequeno Rivers!"_

_As the sound of Risa stepping out of the box and down the rusty bleachers echoed beside him, Mitch watched Amber Prescott and her friends, the cheerleaders, all giggle as they rushed out onto the field in celebration. Beside them, he made out the figure of Prudence Mercedes, the only girl who had managed to get on the football team and keep up with the boys, swishing her helmet hair out as she walked away, causing her frightened teammates to make way for her. Everyone was there; everyone except Jude Mercedes, who had announced very vocally to everyone in the hallway that no matter whom won the game, "everybody lost anyway". Slightly disturbed by his comment, it was nearly an __hour later at school that day before anyone spoke to eachother again._

"_Hey Adam", Mitch urged in a friendly and sarcastic way. "Go out onto the field and give Amber Prescott a lame pick-up line to entertain everyone"._

_Adam laughed. "Sure, I'd love for all of her friends to kick my ass!"_

_Laughing at Adam's comment, Mitch turned around to his side. In the corner of his eye, Peter Juntz was paying Tristan Igolovsky money that he had apparently bet on the game. Sadie Mercedes was sitting next to him and looking jealously down at the field at Amber Prescott, massaging her skinny cheeks and pressing on them almost like they were too fat. Lea Passington was ignoring everyone completely, staring down at what Mitch was relatively sure was a Bible. Sitting above her, Logan Spruce's enormous body sat on the top bleacher, almost like the entire metal structure was about to come crashing down._

_However, what caught Mitch's eye was Risa Ridgeway._

"_Adam!" Mitch called, turning around._

_Adam was talking to Travis Igolovosky, and apparently arguing if Erin Thompson would beat Victoria Jenkins in a catfight. Turning around, his slightly freckly face stared back at Mitch._

"_Yeah?"_

"_Look over there, dude!"_

_Risa Ridgeway, their class president, was screaming out over the railing of the bleachers angrily, almost like she was screaming at the air. However, when Mitch craned his neck around Sadie Mercedes's sulking head, he realized exactly what was going on._

_Darren Warner, fidgeting with his fingers, was sobbing softly alone on the sidewalk. Around him, nearly seven figures were shoving him around, and from what Mitch could tell, no teachers were around to do anything; Darren was at their mercy. When one of them caught Darren and pushed him again into another one, Mitch noticed every single one of them had a number stitched onto their back; they were all football players._

"_Stop!" Risa shrieked. "This isn't right!"_

_Peter Juntz, caught in mid-sentence with Tristan and Travis Igolovosky, turn around and stared blankly at the insuring chaos. His face, covered in make-up, lit up in shock._

"_What the hell are you guys waiting for?" Peter said, turning in disgust to Mitch and Adam. "C'mon. They could probally kill him if we give them the time"._

_Slightly embarrassed he had a drag queen protecting him, Mitch accepted the facts he and his best friend were cowards and hurried out of his seat with Peter and Adam. Hurrying over to Risa, still shrieking angrily over the bleacher railing, he watched Peter tap her on the back._

"_What's going on?"_

_Risa rolled her plain and annoyed eyes. "It's Chris and his friends again, Peter. They won't leave Darren alone. It's so sad; Darren thinks differently than them so they attack him for it"._

_Risa was right. In the moonlight, Mitch saw Chris Barrister give Darren, sobbing, a hard shove over to Eddie Dunnerman, who shoved him over to the semi-retarded senior Leon Mandler. They were all laughing like hyenas, all part of the sick joke. _

"_You're dieing me!" Darren kept screaming, terrified. "You're dieing me!"_

"_Stop!" Peter snapped. _

_Chris snorted, spinning around, missing catching Darren and letting him fall to the muddy ground. "Oh, it's just that cross-dressing faggot Peter Juntz, that emo kid Mitch, his whiny friend Adam, and our dike class president Risa Ridgeway. My best friends!'_

_The rest of the football team all laughed like Chris had told the funniest joke. Mitch clenched his fist but couldn't do anything; Chris was much stronger than Risa, Adam, Peter, and him combined._

"_I wish you were smart enough to know that only two percent of high schoolers get scholarships", Peter snapped, shaking his head. "And that's not just counting football you idiot. Keep failing high school and see what happens, Chris. Let Darren go"._

_Chris merely snorted, wretched up Darren's sobbing body from the ground, and thrusted him over to another linebacker, who was a junior, named Garrett Pear. "Try me and watch what happens, Juntz. You'll be joining Darren over here with out fun little game, and that goes for Mitch, Adam, and Risa, too. Oh, and if any of you tell anyone, don't count on anything. Coach Barrister-"_

"_You mean your dad", Peter abruptly cut in._

"_Was telling me", Chris continued. "That this is going to be the best night of my life and he's not letting anyone ruin it. Hell, next week when we play Graverson High, I'll have an even better night after we win"._

_Suddenly, before Peter could say anything else, something amazing happened._

_With a sigh, Risa climbed over the railing of the bleachers quickly, falling several feet to the mud where her shoes stuck. With that, she turned to Chris, sucked in all of her breath, and gave him a soft shove._

_Mitch gasped. It was hardly enough to injure him, but it was a ticket for Risa to have a beating._

"_You're going to get died", Darren warned Risa, speaking in his raspy voice punctured with a sob._

_It happened in a matter of seconds. Risa lost six of her teeth, along with a gained nosebleed that ruined her naturally pretty face. Even though Mitch could see Peter was about to do something, it was too late. Risa fell to the ground, bloody and beaten, as the football team furiously swarmed away like a swarm of agitated bees; their work had been done._

"_Risa!" Mitch called._

_He knew it was cowardly, but now that the football team was gone, he could finally help Risa. He knew that selfishlessly, he had cared about his own safety more than hers; he felt horrible. Scrambling over the bleachers, and falling into the mud, he ran over to Risa's beaten body as Adam and Peter both knelt down beside him._

"_Are you okay?" he gasped. "I'm so sorry. Peter was doing everything. I should have said something. I-_

_Risa didn't answer. Instead, smiling softly, she bent herself up and walked over to Darren's body. Then, still not breaking her smile, she hugged him deeply as he sat fidgeting with his fingers._

'_That b-b-b-beating was for you, D-D-Darren", she choked out through her nosebleed._

_Mitch gasped. Then, he smiled, followed by oncoming tears that mixed in with the sound of Risa's._

_Risa Ridgeway was someone that cared about people. Even if she never knew them, she would stand up for them, because Darren Warner was the kind of person who didn't even know what standing up for yourself was. That was why Risa was here; somebody who would take a beating for what she believed in._

_She was an angel._

* * *

Almost in a reenactment of Kevin Hashburg's demise, the bullet screeched violently into the air, taking the left half of Risa's face off with it like a peeling and bloody onion. Her teeth jittered softly, clearly exposed with her mangled and bleeding gums as the gunsmoke vanished.

"Oh, Christ", Luke moaned. "Oh _god_, that's horrible…"

With the wretching sound of Luke vomiting echoing in Mitch's ears with the sound of the gunshot. Half of Risa's face had been completely blown away by the gun, almost making her appear like half a human. Her eyes bulged like saucers, swelling red as blood capillaries broke behind them.

"_Mit_…"

Risa limped forward deliriously before falling to the ground with a sickening thud on the wooden floor. Her body continued to twitch softly, but after that, she didn't move. In fact, she would never move again. Beside Mitch, Terry leaned close to him, whimpering like a puppy.

Risa Ridgeway, the only one in the class that risked her safety and life to stand up for Kevin Hashburg, in the classroom, and Darren Warner, at that terrible football game, was now dead.

And he had killed her.

Shivering as he stared down at Risa's mangled corpse, Mitch realized something horrible. He was never going to know what happened to Risa. She was just another untold story and he would never know what had caused her to play the game.

How many other untold stories were there?

* * *

**Eliminated**

**(Girl #14) Ridgeway, Risa**

* * *

**35 Students Remaining**

* * *

**The whole idea of Risa's death wasn't that you knew exactly what happened to her. It was based on the idea that your mind had to decide what destroyed her mind; I don't even know exactly what the competition did to her. I'm just saying this because I don't want angry messages saying Risa was an undeveloped character, because she wasn't supposed to be. She was supposed to represent what the game does to people.**

**I feel bad killing Risa, because she was probally the nicest of all of the kids there. It's sad what the game did to her mind. I wonder if she would regret sticking up for Darren if she knew that he was killing everyone.**

**An alternate character was meant to die in this chapter, but Risa took their place. In really early drafts of this story, Roxy Patterson and Risa Ridgeway were completely different characters. Risa was Terry's only friend who basically had the same personality she does now. Roxy was a lot of more cynical and sarcastic, and the drama club aspect was completely omitted. In the very first draft of the story, I planned Roxy to die, but seeing how I completely changed their characters, I decided to kill off Risa.**


	13. Day 1: Hour 11: 35 Students Remaining

At 11:02 AM, Prudence Mercedes (Girl #8) walked along the shimmering rocks of the lagoon with her weapon, a rake, gripped tightly in her hands.

The more she thought about it, she was an idiot; _why hadn't she taken Darren Warner's pistol when she had knocked him out? _Now, along with Sadie's samurai sword, she was trapped in the wilderness with a rake to defend herself. In her mind, Prudence knew the government was getting their amusement out of watching her defend herself with the blunt end of a rake; she wondered how high the ratings for the program were this season..

Beside her, nuzzled softly against her shoulder, Sadie Mercedes (Girl #9) walked lopsidedly like a lost soul on the way to heaven. Her face, still a mess of dirt and mud from nearly suffering premature burial, still was completely lifeless. It frustrated Prudence to see what the fucking government had done to Sadie; it was almost like she had no will to go on living.

"The lagoon is pretty", Prudence admired, trying to start a conversation.

"Nobody wins, Prudence".

It was the third time Sadie had said it for no reason, and still, Prudence did not know what she meant. Obviously, if you escaped, like the two of them were going to, you had beaten the government; you had won. But why was Sadie so upset? It just gave Prudence another reason to continue practicing her favorite hobby: being angry.

As they trudged over the slippery rocks of the lagoon, Prudence noticed something silver and beaded nestled between the gap of two slanted rocks. _Pearls? _Glancing down, it took a minute for her to register that it was a beaded necklace. In fact, she had seen this necklace every day in the hallway. It belonged to a classmate.

"This is Roxy's necklace".

"Prudence, do you know how they put the mice in the maze to get the cheese?'

The fact that Sadie had spoke so abruptly blocked Prudence from any thoughts concerning Roxy Patterson. It was so random; almost out-of-character for Sadie.

"Yeah, I guess", she said, still slightly surprised. "It's for intelligence testing, I think".

Sadie nodded bitterly. "The mice all go into the maze together and look around for the cheese by sniffing it out. In the end, after crawling through all of those tubes, one mouse gets the cheese. But it doesn't matter. The scientists take the cheese away, lock the mouse in a cage, and start on a new batch of mice on the same piece of cheese". She sniffled, wiping dirt out of her bony face. "The program really isn't that different".

"Are you saying you think they kill the winner of the program when it's over?"

Sadie sighed. "I don't know, but it's an idea. Have you ever met anyone in your entire life that won the program? Have you ever heard of anyone?"

"But it's broadcasted on TV, Sadie. It gets the highest ratings out of everything on television. We see the winner on TV. We_-_

"You're right, _Prudence_". Sadie rubbed the dirt out of her tear-stained eyes, still looking lifeless. "And we never see them again after that".

The more Prudence thought about it, the more sense it actually made. It was a plausible idea that the winner of the program was simply going to be taken behind the school and shot after the massacre of Spanish Rivers High was over. The moment only one remained, they simply became the forty-second eliminated on a list of dead numbers and names. It just gave her another reason to pursue her favorite hobby; hating things.

Prudence hated the program. She hated all of the students at her school, especially Amber Prescott who had caused her sister to become anorexic. Even though this was actually Sadie's fault, Prudence refused to admit it. She hated her parents, who spent their days with their aristocratic country club friends and were hardly ever home; maybe that was the reason all three of them, Jude, Sadie, and her, had grown up to be so screwed up.

"I hate this game", Prudence concluded like a juvenile statement. "I'm never going to play".

"This isn't a board game, Prudence. You can't just stop playing and go into the kitchen to get a snack. Maybe that was what Nicole thought". Almost instantly, Sadie's lifeless eyes bulged to life. "Oh my god, Nicole!"

It happened in a matter of seconds.

Almost instantly, Sadie collapsed hard onto the sandy rocks beside the lagoon, landing roughly on her head and obviously leaving a large bruise. Deliriously, she vomited, letting blood and stomach contents drip out of her mouth. In the corner, a lone string of vomit hung there before the wind blew it away and into Sadie's tangled and dirty mess of blonde hair. It had happened so quickly that Prudence was almost frozen in time for several seconds.

Then, her judgement came back.

"Sadie!"

Kneeling down on the wet rocks, she cringed as she glanced down at her sister's pale and semi-unconscious face. Someone with anorexia obviously wasn't fit for these kind of survival conditions. Sadie's body had been pushed and pushed, until finally, it could hardly stand up anymore. Even though Sadie's eyes were open, it seemed like they could close any minute, leaving Prudence completely alone with her anger. She couldn't have that. At least when she was with Sadie, she had somebody to share her feelings with, even if the game had destroyed her sister's mind. They were going to escape the island, but now, Prudence didn't know anything. All she felt was furious at everyone.

_I hate the government…_

_I hate how my sister starves herself…_

_I hate how she did it to look popular for Amber Prescott…_

_I hate Amber Prescott…_

Prudence hated many things. Every time she saw something that benefited her anger, it gave her a little more go-power. It enhanced her strength and adrenaline even enough to let her be the star athlete at her school. But eventually, all energy burned out, and now, Prudence was finally alone.

"Sadie!" Prudence sobbed. "God damn it! _I'm so pissed_!"

She clenched her palms tightly, feeling them turn white and begin to bleed. It was a horrible feeling, knowing your sister's own desire to fit in was now killing her. If Sadie had just been herself, instead of starving her own body to look beautiful and skinny, she wouldn't be dieing now.

"Prudence", Sadie muttered, squinting up at her crying sister. "I'm too tired for breakfast…_Can't eat_…I'm not eating…._Just a few more days and I'll look skinnier…I'll eat again…_

She was completely delirious, which only made Prudence feel even worse. Letting the blood drip down her palm, Prudence sighed and gripped the scruff of Sadie's shirt, heaving the skinny girl behind her muscled shoulder. Her muscles pounded, but somehow, she was able to hold Sadie. Letting her anger fuel her bones, Prudence took a step off the rocks, feeling the adrenaline turn into her own strength. It was a great feeling; knowing your hate for the world made you think you were stronger.

Over the hills of the lagoon, past a cluster of purple rocks, was a red barn standing in the distance. A rickety windmill spun in the distance, beckoning them forward like it was singing an evil song in the wind.

Deciding it wasn't important, Prudence roared and made a break for it, letting her sister's limp arms flap uselessly at her sides. The grassy meadow scratched her knees, giving her even more go-power. The evil song of the windmill enchanted Prudence forward, almost beckoning her.

"_Take on the government_", it sang. "_Show all of the fuckers. Kill Burke and escape_".

Finally, feeling her heart nearly pound outside her chest, Prudence gasped as she stood at the entrance to the barn. _Maybe…just maybe…there was somewhere for Sadie to lay down inside. _Picking up her aching arm, feeling the hamstrings of her muscles tightening, Prudence moaned out loud and knocked on the door. It was almost like she expected someone to answer.

To her surprise, someone did.

Leana Devora (Girl #2) answered the wooden, sliding barn door with her scrunched and babyish face, almost identical to a monkey. She raised her bushy eyebrow, almost trying to make the best of the situation.

"Welcome to the Spanish Rivers Redemption Clinic", she said. "Founded by Leana Devora, Perry Rumbaugh, and June Harrison on the island of Cuna Cielo. You're just in time for lunch".

* * *

Lea Passington (Girl #11) moaned as she opened her eyes.

Something heavy was pinning her completely to the marble floor of the library, and when she glanced forward, she realized the entire floor was littered with splintery dust and pine ash, along with her golf club laying aimlessly beside her.

_A bookcase was pinning her to the ground? What had happened?_

Almost instantly, it all came flying back to Lea.

_Demi Marigold_!

She had been surveying her from the attic of the library when the ancient floor cracked and sent her falling down nearly two stories onto the marble floor. Was that why there was such a sharp pain in her stomach? After chasing Demi Marigold, the useless weed, Lea had somehow been crushed by a bookcase while Demi fled.

Moaning, Lea struggled to pull herself out from under the bookcase. Her hair was like a net of wooden dust, and there were several scratches on her shoulders, especially the deep wound Roxy Patterson had given her, but besides that, Lea Passington (Girl #11) was alive.

And she was ready for more re-planting.

Using her golf club to balance herself, Lea realized she could hardly run anymore. She was limping from the bookcase crashing into her and the joints of her knees were screaming at her to lay back down. She would have to be even more careful, especially if she found another weed. However, in Lea's eyes, everybody was a dead weed; they were all bad people who were dead on the inside, and all Lea had to do was make them dead on the outside.

_She would mangle Amber Prescott for being a selfish cheerleader. She would impale Mitch Kelley for being secluded and shy. She would shoot Sadie Mercedes for being anorexic and killing her own body. She would obliterate Chris Barrister for being a win-it-all jock…_

The only thing that troubled her was that while she had a list of every classmate and their negative qualities, Lea didn't even look at her own moral obligations. It was almost like she had convinced herself she was a good person.

Finally standing up, Lea surveyed herself in the polished mirror beside the spiraling staircase to the next floor of the library. Even though she wasn't exactly pretty, she was an average-looking girl; very short, brown-haired, and slightly large ears.

_Why was Lea judging her appearance? Did this mean she was becoming a preppy cheerleader, just like Amber and her friends?_

"Die!"

Without warning, Lea swung the golf club into the mirror, shattering it to bits and causing the beaten-up short girl in the mirror to completely vanish in a sea of breaking glass. The trinkets of glass fell to the floor at Lea's feet as she breathed deeply.

She would not become like Amber Prescott. She was Lea Passington, who was doing a good thing by replanting the student body. She was, arguably of course, the best student in the entire grade. Anyway, that was what she thought. She didn't want to die, because if she died, she would die without a religion or any faith at all. So far, even after doing something as beautiful and helpful to society as this, she hadn't found her faith.

Limping as she used her golf club for support, Lea began to sob as she walked out toward the bright morning outside the library.

She would find her faith, at least before she died. Every weed she replanted would be _one_ step closer to her goal. And that one step was the only thing that was keeping Lea Passington (Girl #11) going.

* * *

Mare's weapon had turned out to be a packet of files.

At first, Winston Van Buren (Boy #19) had deemed it as another sick joke by the government. However, the more he looked into it, he realized that it was actually a true weapon, perhaps even more effective than his switchblade.

They were official game files of every student in the competition. From Zane Barrens (Boy #1) to Mae Yamamoto (Girl #21), it told the history, attributes, weaknesses, and strengths of every valid player in the competition, along with some miscellaneous information that surprised Winston.

"Did you know Chris Barrister takes steroids?" Mare Ewing (Girl #3) asked, raising her eyebrow as she skimmed through the packet.

Even though the files had intrigued him, Winston had distanced himself from them. It almost felt like dancing on his classmate's lives by skimming through their personal information. He had only read his own file, which alone was too much for him; they had even somehow included that his nickname among the bullies at their school was "Moose".

"Don't you feel wrong looking at this?" Winston asked. "Do you really have fun looking at everyone's lives and reading anything you think is interesting?"

Mare grinned sarcastically, raising the brows of her spiky green hair. "Sure do!"

Winston rolled his eyes as Mare continued to glance down at the files. They were sitting in the forest on a termite-eaten log beside a bog. Sprawled out across the log, they had found a pistol and several bottles of water and bread rolls. For a second, Winston was overjoyed with this, but his joy soon turned into grief; _why was he happy over discovering weapons that probally belonged to one of his classmates?_

"Zane's dad is a cop", Mare laughed. "Kind of ironic, huh?"

Skimming another page, Mare's eyes lit up at what Winston saw was her own file. Plastered on was a picture of Mare at some kind of party. Her face was red from dancing, and her arm seemed to be around a close friend who was cut-off in the picture; the slightly hooked nose that was barely visible looked like Roxy Patterson.

"It says the fact that I dyed my hair is a cry for attention", Mare read with mild interest. "And that I'm scared of what people think of me".

Winston cocked an eyebrow, thinking about how she had stolen his switchblade easily. "Does it mention you're a kleptomaniac?"

Mare stared. "Huh? Oh, a klepto. Yeah, it shows my prescriptions in the medical section of the file. To tell you the truth, Winston, I don't see what the big deal is about stealing. When we die, we're not taking our clothes with us, are we? Even if they bury them with us, they'll just rot in the dirt. The idea of owning anything is a myth. I like what I see, so I take it".

'You mean you _steal_ it".

"You'll never understand", Mare scoffed, flicking a green strand of hair out of her eyes. "But until then, we might as well make the best of the time we have together".

Reaching into the pocket of her artfully torn jeans, Mare pulled out an expensive-looking lighter and a small box of matches. It was clear to Winston how she had come to possession of both. Without even looking at the matches, she quickly lit a flame, and without warning, lit the files on fire.

"Mare! _Wait_!'

Swatting the matches out of Mare's hand, Winston grabbed the burning papers and stamped them onto the wet ground of the swamp, stamping and crushing them under his sneakers until the flames were gone. Several pages were completely unreadable with scourged marks, most notably Shyla Ryals' file that was almost a charred piece of black paper.

"I want to see Demi's file", Winston said, persistantly.

Turning around, Winston noticed that Mare had used the matches to light a cigarette she had taken from her pocket and was now blowing the smoke deeply into her lungs. Great. Not only was his partner a thief, but she was also a heavy smoker. It guaranteed Winston such a longer time alive…

"Go ahead", Mare sighed, breathing out smoke like a train whistle. "Nothing's stopping you".

Winston rolled his eyes. "Mare, think what would happen if this fell into the wrong hands and somebody got to know every single thing about everyone on the island. They could use it against us!"

Mare lay out across the log with her cigarette, glancing up at the sunlight breaking through the trees as she inhaled deeply. "Let em".

Winston gritted his teeth as he stared at the spiky-haired girl laying on the termite-eaten log as she smoked a cigarette. Even though he had only been with Mare for several hours, her, "_I don't care that I'm going to die_", attitude was actually beginning to anger him. Mare had nothing to live for, and strangely, she was proud of it.

"Do you want a cigarette, Winston?" Mare asked. "Or are you too much of a pansy to destroy your lungs?'

"I don't smoke".

"Neither did I until this game started. I'm going to light you a cigarette, and if you don't accept it, I'm going to get up from this log and calmly kick your ass".

Seeing no other choice, Winston accepted the cigarette Mare quickly lit and for the first time in his life, inhaled it. He nearly gagged; it tasted awful and the smoke filled his lungs. His eyes began to water, but somehow, he didn't cough. Glancing down at the files, Winston's heart began to beat.

Demi and him were inseparable. They knew everything about eachother. What if there was something in Demi's file that changed the entire situation? What if it would completely alter the remainder of their lives?

"Demi and I know everything about eachother", Winston concluded.

Mare rolled her eyes as she lay on the log. "Good for you". The wound in her ankle, after being shot in the classroom, looked bruised-black and horrible, but somehow, she was ignoring the pain by smoking.

"Do you think she would want me to know all of her secrets?" he asked, almost in no more than a whisper. "We're about to die, but what if there's something in here that I should know about her before…before…

"She dies?"

Winston glared. "Shut up, Mare!"

"Face it, Winston! We're all going to die! But in the end, your little question comes down to if you think your girlfriend would want you to know her secrets. What do you think?"

Before Winston could think about it, the sound of an out-of-control stapler, pummeling the air, snapped into his ears. Almost instantly, the log was rittled with bullets, tearing it apart in an explosion of bark that jerked up like mineholes. Mare's cigarette, in an instant, was shot out of her hand, leaving her eyes agape.

"Jesus…"

Spinning around, Winston's mouth dropped open as he stared at Darren Warner, standing knee-deep into the swampy bog, holding a pistol that was aimed directly at his exposed chest.

* * *

_Thirty-six year old Jennifer Warner sat on the couch in the living room of their ranch home, quietly listening to the reality television shows that were buzzing like annoying flies on television. On the floor, drawing aggressively with his red crayon, was her six-year old son Darren._

_When Jennifer had first learned that her boy had Down's Syndrome she was convinced she was simply on the wrong plane. She had been meaning to go to Amsterdam, but for some reason, the plane had landed in Holland. But eventually, she would learn that Holland had flowers and interesting places, too. That was all getting a boy with special needs was like; getting off on the wrong plane._

_However, especially after her husband Daniel had left her the moment Darren was born, Jennifer Warner needed those beautiful Holland flowers more than ever._

"_Did you have a good day at school today, Darren?"_

_Darren continued to draw with his red crayon, not even glancing over at his mother. "Crayons"._

_Jennifer nodded, used to his responses. Picking up the cheap remote, she turned off the reality television that she hated watching, yet was completely hooked on. Straightening her dress, Jennifer stood up and walked over quietly to her son, who was still drawing agressively on the paper._

"_What are you drawing, dear?"_

"_Crayons"._

_Expecting this answer, Jennifer sighed and walked over to the kitchen table in the corner where a stack of bills were waiting to be paid. Being a struggling writer, preferring tragic romance novels, Jennifer was dirt-broke. Even though she knew she was an intelligent woman with many skills, she refused to work in an office for the remainder of her life. She didn't want to waste her life making wealth off something that bored her, even if she dig have a business degree._

_Sitting down in the chair, Jennifer perked up her glasses and glanced down at the electricity bill. Already, she knew that was all she would be able to pay this month. She would have to figure out how to buy a loan, or at least more time until these bills could be paid. After all, she had beloved Darren to look after._

"_Got in a fight, ma"._

_Glancing up, Jennifer saw Darren fidgeting with his fingers as he stood in front of her. He was smiling at the ground with his eyes rolling up and down like the tide of the ocean._

"_You got in a fight, sweetie?"_

"_It was the Amber girl. I was drawin' a picture in art, but she told the teacher about it. Teacher was scared. I got sent to the prince"._

_The prince. It was Darren's word for principal, which seemed to be too long for him to say or understand. Reaching over onto Darren's shoulder, she forced a stern look onto her face that pierced her middle-aged wrinkles like old silk._

"_You're not any different than them", Jennifer said. "Not Amber. Not the principal. Not anyone"._

_Darren nodded as he stared down at the musty floor of the Warner household. She was all Jennifer had left now; her parents were dead and Jeff had walked out on her. All she had was Darren; her different but beautiful boy. After all, it was all like getting off on the wrong plane, right?_

"_What were you drawing that scared the Amber girl?"_

_Darren's eyes lit up. "I draw them all died. All going down the conveyor belt, just like in the super market. Different machines were all coming down, doing stuff to them. Claws coming down and ripping them open. Swords fallin' down. I drew, ma. After they done on the conveyor belt, they all get emptied out onto the garbage truck. Like a dieing factory…Amber was scared of it"._

_It was a horrible thing when you were scared of your own child; Jennifer was the best person to explain this to anyone. Darren's ideas, morbid and disturbing, terrified her. However, he truly was all she had left and she had to learn to understand him, slowly but surely._

"_Let me hug you, sweetie. Nothing Amber or the principal says is going to change who you are. We'll have a nice meeting with the principal…another nice meeting. We'll work everything out when we talk to him, because you're my little boy and I love you very much! You know that, don't you Darren?"_

"_I gonna' draw more pictures"._

_Waddling away with his small legs, Darren picked up his large pack of Crayola crayons and walked away down the shady hallway. As her lip quivered, Jennifer Warner, single mother, looked at the mountain of bills and taxes in front of her and began to weep._

_Downstairs, in the wet basement where his mother hardly knew he went, a boy with a pimply face and messy black hair sat rocking an infant doll in a cradle. The room was dark, and the atmosphere, along with a collection of antique dolls decorating the walls, didn't make it a unthreatening place. _

_However, to Darren Warner, those dolls were his friends. They used to be his mother's as a child, but she never came down here anymore, especially after his father had left. With his eyes staring down at his fidgeting fingers, he listened to the gentle rocking sound of the doll's cradle._

"_Got in a fight", Darren muttered to all the dolls. "Amber didn't like it"._

_The dolls all stared at him with their petrified eyes, but still they said nothing. With all of their permanently transfixed looks and dead eyes, the dolls almost resembled the confused and permanent expression Darren always had on his face._

_He was confused._

_He wasn't sure why, but he knew he wasn't like his classmates. He was angry; so angry that he wanted to die them. They all needed to get died, because they were different than him, and this caused Darren to become even more confused. After all, his mother had always said he was normal, so why did they become frightened when he acted the way he did?_

"_You're all my friends", Darren said, glancing around at all of the dolls. "I'm happy"._

_He began to rock the cradle harder and harder, listening to the sound of the plastic head of the baby doll hitting the wooden cradle. Soon, the porcelain head began to shatter, breaking apart the head as Darren rocked it harder and harder. The cradle creaked with the broken plastic in it, slowly chipping apart the baby like a pressure blender._

_That was when a new tantrum started._

_Furiously, Darren sprung up from the ground and gripped one of the dolls at the wall from the porcelain throat. Furiously, he sunk his teeth into the fabric wedding dress the doll was wearing, ripping it apart like a cloth. He threw the mangled doll into the cradle with the mangled baby, followed by another doll that he quickly grabbed from the shelf._

"_I'm confused! I don't get it!"_

_And as Darren Warner, the quiet and strange boy with Down's Syndrome, tore apart dolls in the basement, Jennifer Warner, single mother, weeped upstairs in the kitchen as she forced herself to read through the bills that she couldn't pay._

* * *

Almost in an instant, Mare shrieked and threw herself under the log, deflecting a hoarde of bullets that pummeled out of the gun in repetition. Winston's eyes opened in shock amazed that Darren was able to cock a gun so fast; he would be completely suitable for the army if he wasn't mentally handicapped.

"Mare!" Winston yelped. "Run, damn it"!

"_What do you think I'm doing_?"

Without his assistance at all, Mare had single-handedly scurried out from under the log, even with her crippled leg, and dashed toward the trees beyond the bog. The muddy files were grasped tightly in her hand. Although he hated to admit it, Mare, the girl he had joined up with, was more emotionally dependable than him.

Spinning back around, Winston was suddenly met with a blunt impact of something hitting him, almost like a pellet, with amazing blunt force, in the foot. It cut under his skin, chipping it away with ease until it was lodged inside.

What he felt next was intense pain over the fact Darren had shot through the sole of his shoe and into his foot.

Howling in agony, Winston doubled over onto the muddy ground, staining his dark skin like he was some kind of swamp monster that had risen out of the bog. Blood was soaking, rather badly, out of his white sneakers until it felt like he was cringing and rolling around in a puddle of his own foot pus.

"You _bastard_!" Winston roared.

The pain was so unbearable that Winston suddenly realized he would never be able to run again. He could limp fine, but even with a walking stick or faulty crutches, he would never sprint again for the rest of his life. The bullet was too deep. He pictured finding Demi and seeing her reaction when she saw him limping like an old man. Would she feel guilty, blaming herself that she hadn't gotten to him sooner?

Pulling his trembling and bloody hand out of the mud, Winston heard the thucking sound of Darren's foot moving through the mud, advancing on him like a wild animal. Shuffling into his pocket, Winston pulled out his only mean of defense; a switchblade.

"You gonna' get _died_!" Darren snarled.

Why was Darren playing the game? He had always struck Winston as a loner, particularly because of his mental handicap, but why would he do something as horrible as kill his classmates? There was no good reason for anything anymore. This was exactly the reason he needed Demi; she was the only person that seemed to have the answers to these kind of things.

A bullet splattered through the mud beside Winston, and when he glanced up, he saw Darren standing on top of the ruins of the log, holding the pistol down at him like a priest accepting forgiveness. Winston's head was reciting last-minute sing-song poetry.

_Mare…_

_Demi…_

_Help her find Roxy…_

_Help me find Mare…_

_Files…_

_Skinhead…_

_Mare…_

_Demi…_

_Help her find-_

"Winston, get your _ass_ up!"

Before he knew what happened, sharply nailed hands had gripped his wrists and was now dragging him away, leaving a muddy line of blood and bog water like a crime scene investigation. Mare had come back for him. The entire idea was almost comical. Somebody who had been preaching so much that they didn't care now cared so much.

"My leg…", Winston shrieked. "Oh God, my leg!"

Even though he could hardly see her face through the mud covering his eyes, Winston knew she had rolled her eyes. "I don't give a shit about your leg!" she snapped. "Stand up or lie down and be shot!"

Not needing any more, Winston Van Buren (Boy #19) moaned as he saw Darren cock the pistol in the corner of his eye. Using Mare's shoulder as support, and for just one second, seeing Demi instead of a spiky-haired thief, Winston quickly limped away in a sharp zigzag, feeling a barrage of bullets shoot at them, but somehow, not making any contact at all.

"Mare", he moaned, his eyes filled with tears. "I got shot hard…"

Mare shook her head. "No, you just gave up for a second. I saved you".

Despite how annoyed he was with her, Winston found that he agreed.

Several feet away, Darren Warner (Boy #19) stared at the two war men as they dashed away. One of them had been a boy, a true fighter of the war, but once again, there was a girl! Why were there so many women in the battlefield? Why weren't they in the barracks hiding like the maiden were supposed to? Shouldn't they be looking after their children?

The thought confused Darren so much that he decided to destroy the problem. Raising his pistol, he fired two shots toward the log. The termite-eaten bark exploded outward, chipping the wet and leafy mud of the bog with the carcasses of bugs and bark.

He was going to die them.

Darren had made a, "war name", for every student in his entire class. He was Sergeant Darren; the leader of the entire patriotic squad who were infiltrating the enemy line to bring justice back to their village on the outskirts of England. He had just met Paratrooper Van Buren who had been tricked by the evil Lieutenant Chris Barrister to catapult himself into the enemy line, and for some reason, bring his maiden Mare with him. As a sacrifice?

Still not completely understanding his classmates at all, Darren Warner walked on; confident he would win the war and finish doing the dieing.

* * *

As the afternoon of the first day approached, three teenagers walked through a wet meadow alongside the rocky cliffs, not very far from where another group of three had contemplated tossing Zane Barrens off of. The first teenager, with his blonde beach-boy ponytail, looked terrified and completely dependant on the other two as her walked in the middle, occasionally stroking the metal collar around his neck. The second was staring at the ground, sniffling as she parted her grayish-blonde hair out of her eyes.

The third had just committed a murder.

"I don't want to carry this pistol anymore", Mitch Kelley (Boy #10) muttered, still shaking from what he had done merely thirty minutes ago. "It's like…like…"

Terry Klingerman (Girl #6) sighed, not even turning around to face Mitch. "Like dancing on Risa's grave?"

Mitch shrugged. He felt guilty no longer crying over Risa's body, but it was hopeless; he had cried himself dry of tears. "I think Risa deserved a proper burial…"

"I think everyone deserves a proper burial, Mitch", Terry added. "But it's not going to happen".

"Unless until this competition is over", Luke Graystone (Boy #5) concluded. Mitch despised the way he was between them as they walked, obviously because he was too cowardly to put his own life before theirs. "The clean-up crew puts the bodies in bags for-

Mitch glared. "Shut up, _Luke_!"

Even though he knew he was being hurtful, he didn't care. Luke was easily the most obnoxious person he had ever met. Not only had he signed them up for the competition, dooming all forty-two of them, but he was also a cowardly brat who hardly cared about him or Terry. After the Risa incident, where they had left the cabin knowing they weren't safe anywhere, Luke hadn't stopped complaining or making offensive comments. Along with the fact that Luke had abandoned him early on, Mitch wanted nothing more than to grab that ponytail and scalp Luke Graystone. It angered him even more that Terry didn't have anything against him.

"Hey Terry", Mitch asked. "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure".

"Why do you have so many of these stupid philosophies about life? They're really pissing me off. They all boil down to the fact that you think everyone is innocent, but in the meantime, how could you call somebody like Luke over here innoc-

"Hey!' Luke butt in angrily. "I cooked you guys breakfast so don't try to dump all of this on me!"

Mitch rolled his eyes. "Why shouldn't I dump all of this on the person that signed us up to _kill_ eachother?"

"Do you think I knew that they would send my entire class with me, Mitch? No, I didn't. So shut up. Oh, by the way, that tongue piercing you did to yourself was probally the queerest thing I've ever seen".

Mitch breathed in his anger, knowing that the minute he punched Luke again, Terry would abandon him and leave him alone, which he knew, was his greatest fear. So many people had abandoned him in life that being alone was like a strange limbo between life and death that he had found himself living on for years.

"Stop fighting", Terry protested. "Please!"

"Terry, you never answered my question", Mitch added.

Taking in a deep breath, Terry stopped directly in her tracks and spun around. Her gray hair, which made her look like an elderly woman, now looked like she was some kind of ancient wizard.

"Why do I trust everyone, Mitch?" she asked, her lips pursed. "Is that your question? Well, let me tell you something. I'm tired of how everybody at our school bullies each other, when in the meantime, we're all the same. Everybody has a story that made them the way they are Mitch. I told you my story, and you told me yours. Even Darren Warner probally has a story….even Risa probally had a story!"

"Please stop talking about Risa!" Luke moaned. "You guys are making me sick!"

"Don't you see, Mitch?", Terry continued, ignoring Luke. "Ever single one of us has something in common: we don't want to die. I don't want to die, your friend Adam doesn't want to die, Peter Juntz doesn't want to die, and I bet even somebody like Jude Mercedes doesn't want to die. And every single one of them probally has a story that _made them the way they are_!"

Terry finished off her speech by panting hard, almost out of breath with anger. Luke and Mitch stared blankly, both transfixed at what she had said.

Mitch glanced at Terry, unsure of what to say. "I'm….sorry?"

"It's okay, Mitch. I'm sorry, too actually. I really don't know what to think right now, either. For all I know, everything I said could be wrong. But nobody is going to get through this competition fighting, so I want you and Luke to promise not to fight anymore".

"Terry, don't you get it? He indirectly murdered forty-two of us!"

Luke shrugged. "Well, actually it's forty-one if you think about it".

Shocked by Luke's horrible comment, Mitch turned around to see that he was offering his large hands out. For somebody so thin and sunburned like an apple core, he was surprised that Luke could have hands that were so big.

"Truce?" Luke asked.

For a second, Mitch was going to place his other hand behind his back. However, Terry saw him, and groaning, he was forced to put his hand into Luke's palm and shake it.

"Truce", Mitch replied, bitterly.

"Mitch! Terry! _Luke_!"

Craning his neck, Mitch glanced out across the meadow and was transfixed by a red barn with a rickety windmill in front of it. How hadn't he noticed it before? A girl, with a metal collar fastened around her neck, jumped up and down excitedly like she was dancing on hot coils. Her tan face, along with her slightly curved cheeks, instantly made Mitch see who it was.

"Guys!" Perry Rumbaugh (Girl #15) screamed breathlessly. "It's me, Perry! Leana Devora and June Harrison are inside! You guys aren't playing the game hopefully, right?"

For a second, Mitch actually wasn't sure how to answer after the Risa incident. Maybe that was why Terry answered for him, with, for some reason, a slightly triumphant look on her face.

"No", she screamed back. "Why are you, Leana, and June in a barn?"

"We found tons of medicine here!" Perry called back. "There's even a kitchen on the side; I think the farmer lived here! We set up a clinic! Come over here! Some other people are already here!"

Glancing over at Terry, Luke glanced up skeptically. "Do you guys know these girls?"

Mitch shrugged. "I think all three of them are on the lacrosse team. I went to the dance with Perry last year, but that was it. We never really talked again until now. It was actually the only date I've ever been on".

Shuffling his bag over his shoulder, Mitch took off dashing toward the barn where Perry was standing enthusiastically. As he dashed through the thick grass, Terry caught up to him neck-to-neck, grinning in satisfaction.

"Isn't it funny that the moment you two stop fighting, we find help?"

Forcing himself to smile, Mitch slowed down into a trudge as he approached Perry Rumbaugh beside the barn entrance with Terry, beside him, and unathletic Luke, several feet behind. Now that they were close enough, Mitch noticed that Perry smelled like freshly baked bread; _they had edible food instead of Luke's cooking!_

"Who else is here?" Terry asked.

Perry glanced up, almost trying to remember. "J.C Brooke is here for sure, but I don't remember who else stopped by".

As they walked in through the entrance to the barn, Perry flashed Mitch a friendly smile as she closed the door. The inside of the barn smelled like horses and hay along with something cooking from the next room. Peering through the crooked boards of the wall, he could see a small glimpse of Leana Devora (Girl #2) and June Harrison (Girl #4) busily preparing food in the kitchen as they giggled like they were in cooking class; it was almost like they didn't even care they were dieing in three days.

"Everyone's resting in that room", Perry said, pointing at a small, peeling door adjacent from the kitchen. "We don't spend a lot of time in the big room of the barn, but until we find a way to get off this island, there's really nothing to do".

Mitch stared. "Do you have any plans to get off?"

Before she could answer, Perry's name was called from the kitchen, causing her to hurry off with a hasty goodbye and a small smile that she flashed with her braces at them. Closing his eyes, knowing that Perry and her friends had no clue how to take care of themselves, Mitch turned around and saw Luke and Terry vanish through the door, causing him to follow suit.

The room they had walked into was the stables, which smelled strongly of horse feces. There were several beds of hay lain out across the floor, though Mitch knew for a fact it would hardly fit more than eight people. The room was dim, and the only light was cast from a hanging lamp that swayed on the ceiling.

Almost instantly, Mitch spotted J.C Brooke (Girl #1). He was annoyed to see that she looked perfectly fine and relaxed, although her arm was in a cheap cast, and was laying out on a bale of hay, sipping her water bottle passionately like she was almost bragging that she was in comfort. _It made him wonder what had happened to Zane Barrens…_

"Hello J.C", Terry said, obviously prepared for an insult.

J.C glanced up, wrinkled her nose in disgust at Terry, and turned back to laying softly against the cot. Mitch could hardly believe that somebody like J.C, who had been pampered all of her life, was alive while her reliable friend Skylar Tierren was dead.

On the bale of hay in the left corner, Prudence Mercedes (Girl #8) and Sadie Mercedes (Girl #9) both sat on one bale. Sadie was asleep, or unconscious, slumped against the wall as Prudence stared at her worriedly. Too scared to talk to somebody with the last name of Mercedes, Mitch turned away.

It was who was sitting against the bale of hay slumped in the right corner that caught his attention.

A boy was reading a Japanese comic book, a manga, while adjusting his square glasses, although Mitch could clearly tell that he was terrified; all of the pages were ripped from him frantically tearing at him. It was Nathan Carpenter (Boy #15); a good friend of Adam Spencers.

And sure enough, Adam Spencers (Boy #15) himself was slumped against the wall as he stared into space. However, the moment he noticed Mitch was staring at him, his hollowed expression instantly came back to life.

"Mitch!"

"Adam!"

It took all of his self-control not to run over to the bale of hay and hug his best friend.

* * *

"Hello?"

Jude Mercedes (Boy #11) glanced through the rickety doors into the log cabin. He could have sworn that merely minutes ago, he had heard muffled screaming from inside. However, if there had ever been any life there, it had left rather quickly. The bedsheets over the cot in the corner were sprawled out across the floor, almost whoever had been resting there left hurriedly.

Clicking his tongue, Jude massaged the wound his arm that Darren had given him, now slightly numb with the bullet still lodged under his skin. As much as he struggled to make himself look casual and collected, he knew it was no use; he had no weapon, and he knew he didn't have the courage to kill anybody else like he had killed Mae Yamamoto.

He hated all of them, but did he have any true reason to kill any of them besides that?

The facts were simple; Jude simply liked to screw around with people, especially his classmates who he could warp to his every whim. They were clueless and confused, and Jude took great pleasure out of tormenting their minds. He was a bully, and now, he could accept that. However, he knew he was more than an average bully, who would simply abuse somebody for the enjoyment of it. He toyed around with people, and when he was tired of them, he would throw them away, just like he had thrown away Mae Yamamoto.

"Hello?" Jude called again.The log cabin was small, except for the cot in the corner and a small kitchen island situated in the opposite corner. It was almost a romantic getaway home; _come to Cuna Cielo and watch ninth-graders have their heads blown off! Fun for the whole family! Bring the kids!_Cringing from the wound in his arm, Jude stepped completely into the doorway and walked into the small cabin. The floor was slightly bumpy and concave, almost like the entire floor was made of mountains.

Or shoulder bones.

Gasping, Jude Mercedes (Boy #11) instantly flung his arm into the air for the search of the rope light, eventually grasping it and pulling it down with a frightened tug. The entire room flickered slightly before revealing what was at Jude's feet.

A pistol had blown Risa Ridgeway's entire face away. Her spiraling brown hair, drifting down her back like a staircase, covered her face almost like she was too ashamed to show what had happened to her. On her wrist, slightly red, were marks that looked like she had been slightly burned or electrocuted by something; _a taser?_

Just like he had did with Skylar and Jesse's bodies when he had found them, Jude spit down on her body, disgracing any glory she was getting in the afterlife. Just like Jesse, Skylar, and every other student besides Jude and his sisters, he knew Risa had been an idiot. Jude Mercedes had no time for idiots, especially ones that would threaten him like Mae Yamamoto.

Glancing around the room as he rubbed his shoulder, Jude felt his heart skip a beat when he noticed the fridge was slightly open and beaming out a light that sparkled with the dust particles in the cabin. Opening it up, he was disappointed that it was hardly stocked; a jar of tuna and sandwich spread, along with a jug of milk, were on the bottom shelf. There was an empty carton of eggs, and it looked like somebody had used the last one. Probally the same person that had killed Risa Ridgeway.

Deciding that tuna, his least favorite food, was better than sawdusty bread rolls, Jude prepared his stomach as he opened the jar, spreading the aroma of cat food and fish across the room. He dug his fingers into the white paste, pursing it against his lips like glue.

"Do you want some tuna, Risa?" Jude asked, sarcastically.

Risa didn't say anything. She sat there, dead, with her entire face blown away and with her tasered wrist. Deciding that corpses weren't much for conversation, Jude continued to snack away on the tuna.

"Y'know, it's weird if you think about it, Risa", he said, knowing he was an idiot talking to his dead class president. "But I thought I had a shot to win this. But I got shot in the shoulder, just a little cut, and right after that, I feel like shit. Kind of weird, huh?"

Obviously, Risa didn't respond.

"But I'm winning", Jude said, determined. "I'll wander around, and if I meet anyone, I'm making them turn against themselves or anyone around them. I'm winning the program by turning them all against their friends and their enemies. After that, I'm tearing up this government, finding Sadie and Prudence, and escaping". He paused in his thoughts, glancing out the sunlight window. "Do you think Sadie's okay?"

The more he thought about Sadie, the more it worried him. Ever since he was young, it had been almost a life lesson from his parents. _Look after Sadie. Look after Sadie. Look after Sadie. _Obviously, his parents knew just as well as he did that Sadie was unfit for the real world, and needed somebody to take care of her. Jude was her older brother; well, by two minutes anyway.

Pushing the thought to the back of his mind, Jude grinned. "So do you think it's a good plan, Risa?"

When Risa didn't answer, as Jude expected, he smiled again as he licked his lips from the awful tuna. His fingers were sticky as he turned the faucet of the sink and let his hands wither under the cold water.

"Y'know, Ridgeway, it's funny. You're easier to talk to when you're dead than anyone here when they're alive. I'm actually pretty glad you died. I think it's an improvement".

Risa said nothing as the drying blood continued to drip down her cheeks.

* * *

**No Students Eliminated**

* * *

**35 Students Remaining**

* * *


	14. Day 1: Hour 12: 35 Students Remaining

"And after that, we wandered into the meadow and found the barn", Adam Spencers (Boy #15) continued, talking rapidly. "We've been here for about three hours".

Mitch Kelley (Boy #10) blinked, still disbelieving that he had actually found Adam. It was almost too good to be true; was Burke going to pop out at any minute and reveal that Mitch had been dreaming for hours? All Mitch needed now to declare that he was dreaming was for Peter Juntz to walk in unharmed, or better yet, Burke to walk in and proclaim the entire program an elaborate joke. However, he knew only the first was faintly possible.

After leaving the school, Adam had attempted to look for Mitch, only to find his good friend Nathan Carpenter (Boy #16) instead, who, being the sixteenth boy, had left merely one person after Adam. They had been wandering on the border of the island for several hours, and so long, had not met anyone; Mitch was envious.

Ever since he and Adam had started talking, he noticed that Terry and Luke had actually begun to speak to eachother. It was strange, because usually, Terry only spoke to him about their personal problems; it was strange to see Luke nodding and shrugging as she spoke.

Sitting beside Adam on a bale of hay, Nathan Carpenter read his comic book with his trembling and frightened hands. The Mercedes girls, hardly speaking to eachother, sat in the corner beside J.C Brooke, who was relaxing on the hay as she read a lawn magazine with her tired eyes. Somehow, one of the three girls in the kitchen had found the magazine in the kitchen, and when J.C Brooke (Girl #1) whined that she was bored, she had been given her least favorite pastime as a result; _reading._

"All of you are so boring", J.C snapped, not glancing up from her magazine. "At least when I was with Zane and my friends, everybody was fighting and I was actually enjoying it".

Prudence Mercedes (Girl #8) glared. "Shut your mouth, J.C, or I'll do it for you".

Seeing that somebody with the last name of Mercedes had threatened her, J.C's eyes bulged wide and she quickly returned back to reading her boring lawn gardening magazine.

"_Good afternoon competitors_!"

It was Burke's voice. Even though they were in a barn, his crackly voice was somehow being magnified by an intercom inside the barn. Almost instantly, everybody in the entire room was silent; even J.C and Prudence instantly stopped bickering.

"It's time for the noon announcement. I hope you've all had a good morning. Well, all thirty-five of you that are still alive. Well, it's time for the body count. For the girls, we had Nicole Zaun (Girl #21) and Risa Ridgeway (Girl #14). Looks like you'll all be needing a new class president. We had no boys. You're all getting lazy; start killing more to bring up our ratings. And the Danger Zones. At 1:34, we have I9, at 4:23 we have D10, and at 5:45 we have F14. Take a break and eat some lunch before you shoot any more bullets. Burke out!"

As the sound of an intercom shuffling echoed over the intercom, Mitch instinctively turned around to Sadie Mercedes. He had been prepared for Risa's death, considering he had been the cause, but Nicole Zaun had become a victim to the program, too? Due to the fact her best friend didn't seem very surprised, Mitch assumed that Sadie had witnessed Nicole's death.

Their class was slowly declining in numbers, and soon, there would be only one left. But who? Darren? Demi? J.C? Zane? Chris? Or possibly Mitch himself? In the end, forty-one students would be corpses and the winner, either proud or mind-tattered, would walk out unscathed.

"Risa's dead", Sadie mumbled, still staring into space. "She was our class president, right?"

Luke nodded. "Yeah…She _was_….". He angrily spun his head around, swishing his ponytail, to glare at Mitch

Ever since the amazement of finding Adam had began to fade, Mitch wondered if he should tell the others in the barn the truth about the horror that had befallen Risa Ridgeway. Their class president had died, and as much as he refused to admit it, he had been the culprit. He was technically a player in the game, and now, he knew certain people would snap his neck the minute he said it; especially selfish and tough J.C and muscular Prudence.

"So", Adam continued, glancing toward Mitch's two teammates. "You teamed up with _them_?"

The way he said, "_them_" was almost like accusing Mitch of a deadly crime. The words hurt, and even though Adam was his best friend, Mitch became defensive.

"What's wrong with _them_, Adam?" Mitch snapped back. "Terry's my friend!"

For a second, he thought Luke was going to make another smart-alecky and idiotic remark. When he didn't, Mitch ended up wishing he had; he wouldn't have been left staring at his best friend like he had never known him.

"Nothing", Adam said, still staring. "But do you really think we could trust Terry or Luke?"

Terry's eyes lit up in anger. "_What_?"

"Look, Mitch. I'm sorry if I sound like a dick or something, but you're looking at the sociopaths of our grade. Everybody's scared of them, well, at least her, and for some reason, you teamed up with both of them. For all we know, Luke could be a mass murderer and Terry could be a convicted serial killer. Don't you think, Nathan?"

Nathan Carpenter, still reading his comic book, merely nodded as his eyes scanned the pages. In all his years of being in Nathan's classes, Mitch noticed he had never seen him talk once. _Was he mute or just incredibly shy_? Either way, it didn't matter. Furiously, Mitch stood up in front of Luke and Terry.

"Just because people get bullied doesn't make them sociopaths, Adam! In fact, I'm pretty sure Zane Barrens bullied both of us this morning!"

Adam rolled his eyes. "Well, I'm different than them!"

Mitch stared at his friend, his mouth agape. For the entire competition, his only goal had been to find his best friend Adam and trust him until the game was over. But now, staring in front of him, did he even know Adam? Faced in a life or death situation, had Adam changed his personality completely. Maybe it was true; _the game changed people._

Luke stood up from their bale of hay beside Mitch, angrily shaking his ponytail out of his eyes. "You must think pretty highly of yourself, huh, Adam?"

Adam glared but didn't say anything. In the corner, Sadie Mercedes (Girl #9) sniffled softly but didn't say anything as well.

"How do you know Perry and her friends aren't out to kill us?" Luke snapped. "They put us all in a room together, for Christ's sake! How do you know methane gas won't come pouring in and kill us all?"

However, Luke didn't need to continue. Mitch saw Adam's logic. He judged people by how they socialized, and if they didn't socialize well, they weren't a good person in Adam's book. Maybe this was why Adam hung out with Nathan Carpenter; he never talked and simply listened.

What had happened to Adam Spencers? Not Adam Spencers (Boy #15), but Adam Spencers before that number had joined with his name. What had happened to his laid-back friend with a twisted and funny sense of humor? Had the game truly warped him completely?

"It just goes to show you", Adam snapped. "You don't know people until your life is in the picture".

"I thought you were my _friend_…", Mitch whispered.

"It's either Luke and Terry or me, Mitch. Either join up with them and die or join up with me, find Peter Juntz, and maybe find a way off this island".

Suddenly, a new voice rang through the air.

"Stop _fighting_!"

Of all people, it was Nathan Carpenter. His voice was high, almost like he had never gone through puberty. When everybody else in the barn stared blankly, including the Mercedes girls and J.C, he made a strange stuttering nose and continued to read his comic book.

"Anyway", Terry started. "Nobody should have to choose between their friends in a time like this. Adam, you're being a dipshit. Mitch, stop jumping on anybody just because you're scared of trusting them".

"I trusted Adam", Mitch retorted. "In fact, he was the only person I trusted for awhile until _he turned into a complete dipshit_!"

Adam glared. "Think of it this way, Mitch. I don't know you anymore if you go with them. In fact, if I see you, I'll kill you if I see you after we leave this barn".

There was a dumbfounded silence in the room that could have gone on for a century. Even J.C and the Mercedes triplets, who were minding their own buisness and not getting involved, stared at the continuing drama. Suddenly, almost like a miracle, Perry Rumbaugh who, after knocking the door, entered the room with a platter of sandwiches, breaking the awkward silence.

"There's turkey, tomato, lettuce, and honey mustard", Perry said, all in one breathe. "The wheat bread is hand-baked; June and Leana rolled the dough themselves!"

With a sigh, Mitch reached over and grabbed a mustard-dripping sandwich, tore it apart with his teeth, and swallowed it in nearly one bite. Adam, meanwhile, didn't take a sandwich; he only continued to stare at him coldly.

"Perry", Prudence said, reluctantly taking a sandwich as the platter was passed around. "We all really appreciate when you three are doing for everyone, and it's great you want to help, but do you really have any clue how to get off the island other than helping people?"

Perry stared. "Why?"

"Well, while they've been arguing like idiots, Sadie and I have been talking. No offense, but we think you have no clue what you're doing".

Glaring as she bit into her sandwich, J.C rolled her eyes. "They're helping us, Prudence. Isn't it obvious? Oh, pass me the mustard, Terry".

"No, J.C!" Prudence yelled. "It's not! They have no idea what they're doing other than helping everyone! When Day Three comes, and the collars start counting down, they'll probally still be here rolling dough and making sandwiches! They don't have any plans!"

Almost in a daze, Perry rubbed her head and quickly left the room, leaving them alone once again with a platter of sandwiches. Angrily, Adam stood up and stomped over to Mitch, glaring down with his sunburned face.

"I'm going to help them in the kitchen", he said, his hot breath stinging Mitch's nose. "Have fun dieing".

As Adam quickly left, followed by Nathan who instantly folded his comic book and left, Mitch thought he was going to cry for a second. Not just for himself and Adam, but everybody in the barn. _Poor Mitch_. _Poor Adam_. _Poor Terry_. _Even Poor J.C_. Nobody deserved to be put into this horrible game, not only was it a physical challenge but the prospect of life and death altered minds, just like it had with Adam's.

"Adam was the only person I could trust", Mitch said, almost to no one. "I didn't trust anyone because I was scared something like this would happen. I-

"I…killed…her…"

The three remaining students in the barn who didn't know of his crime, Prudence, Sadie, and J.C, all locked their eyes on Mitch like he was the defendant at a court hearing. Terry hugged herself deeply, staring down at the ground like she was too ashamed of Mitch to glance up.

_Had he actually said those words? What has possessed him to say that? Now, Prudence Mercedes…Oh, God!_

"Risa?" Sadie asked in a faint whisper.

Mitch nodded. "Risa".

"Nicole is dead, Mitch", Sadie yelped suddenly. "I don't know how and I don't know why, but she's dead. She was there one minute, and the next, the dirt swallowed her up. It just ate her up like she was never there! _It just ate her up_!"

Prudence bit her lip as she shrugged at Mitch. "She's delirious. Nicole dieing really messed her up. She fainted on the way here, but Perry gave her some kind of pill and it jerked her awake in about a minute. Maybe they were caffeine pills. Anyway, I'm not even going to ask you about Risa, just like you're not going to ask us about Nicole. Deal?"

"_Deal_..."

Relieved that he wasn't going to be eliminated anytime soon, he watched suspiciously as Prudence rose from the bale of hay, strutted over to his bale, and bent down beside his backpack. She pulled out his metallic taser, buzzing a blue jolt of electricity that wiggled like a centipede. Her eyes seemed enchanted by it, almost like she had never seen light before.

"Your weapon, Mitch?"

He nodded. "Yeah".

"I got a sowing kit", Terry said suddenly. "Mitch stitched up my arm with it".

Luke, slightly embarrassed, glanced down at the ground as his face turned red like a turnip. "A Bible…".

Prudence, slightly amused by Luke's answer, nodded. "I got a rake; lucky me, huh? Sadie's weapon was a samurai sword. What about you, J.C?"

J.C, clicking her braces, glanced up from the boring lawn magazine like she had been disrupted in the middle of important business. "_What_?"

"Your weapon, you little shit! What was it?"

"A pistol. I lost it when I was being chased by Meyerhold Zemeckis after Zane killed Jesse and Skylar".

Almost instantly, the air in the room was as still as a humid day. Even the noise of the kitchen just outside seemed to stop, isolating the entire room. Mitch felt his jaw drop.

"Zane is _playing_ the game?"

J.C nodded, still not seeming to care at all. "He offed them both with sleeping pills when I was out collecting food with Rory. We both ran off and ended up getting seperated in the forest. My boyfriend is still out there, so watch out".

So Zane Barrens (Boy #1) had decided to please the government and take part in the game. It was strange, because he was likely the most vocal in the class, besides Prudence, at voicing his displeasure with the government. It was odd he would comply with their rules like this…

"Something doesn't add up", Terry said, bemused. "Zane wouldn't do this…".

"Believe what you want, but he's out there, Klingerman".

"So is Darren", Mitch said, remembering how he and Terry had fled. "He's playing the game, too. Luke saw Shyla pointing a pistol at Adrienne at the beach; he thinks she's playing the game, but I don't believe it".

Sadie whimpered. "Darren buried Nicole…".

So that had been the fate of Nicole Zaun (Girl #21). At least, unlike all of the other students, she had been given a somewhat proper burial. She wouldn't have to face the indignity of being shuffled into a wet and bloody, plastic body bag alongside her classmates.

"Anyway, it's time to choose sides", Prudence continued. "There's forty-two of us, and only one is leaving here alive. It could be somebody in this room or it could be somebody out there. Anyway, we have to set our goals right now. Adam already set his. Do any of you know what you're doing?"

"I'm staying with them until something exciting happens", Luke answered.

_Exciting_. What did that mean? Whatever it meant, Mitch refused to think about it. Luke was a pest, and if he ignored him enough, he would simply buzz away to agitate somebody else.

"I was going to team up with Adam and find Peter Juntz", Mitch murmured. "But now…". He sighed inwardly, blinking again to convince himself of what had just happened. This was real; everything in the program was so frightently real.

"Sorry about your friend", Terry said.

Mitch shrugged. "I guess you don't know who your friends are until your life depends on it, huh, Terry?"

Terry stared blankly. "I don't have any friends. But if I did, they wouldn't be the kind of people who would turn their back on me. They would give me attention and accept me. I really never talked to anyone to get that kind of friend, though".

"That's because you're a loser!" J.C snorted through a mouthful of wheat bread and lettuce.

Ignoring J.C, Mitch glanced at his cheap watch. Every tick, barely audible under his heartbeat, meant another second under the wrath of the program. Any of those seconds, any of his classmates could be gone. Spanish Rivers High, freshman advanced science, was slowly declining even faster than those seconds. His mind sung to him, naming every one of his classmates and matching them to those ticks.

_Tick…Mae…._

_Tick…Enrique…_

_Tick…Risa…_

_Tick…..Nicole…_

Who would join with the seconds next? Adam? J.C? Nathan? Perry? The possibilities were endless, but it all boiled down to one truth.

The program had mentally destroyed Mitch's one friend, the only person he had been willing to trust. Either that, or Adam had let this willingly happen to himself. Mitch's main character flaw was trusting in fear that others would walk out on him. Not only had his father walked out on him, along with his mother, but now Adam had also taken the haunted path away from Mitch Kelley's heart.

"I hate this game", Mitch said suddenly. "I don't want to play…"

"Zoom in on the terrified face of Mitch Kelley; Boy #10", Luke said abruptly. "Thrown into the program by fate. Will he win? Tune in during the next episode for the conclusion of the high-rating Program".

"I never watched the program on television", Terry noted. "What's it like?"

"It's like pro-wrestling", Prudence said, almost thoughtfully. "Except once you're in the ring, anything goes and the loser can never wrestle again".

"And nobody wins".

Sadie Mercedes (Girl #9) spoke these words in a mumbled and tired voice, almost like she was coming out of a trance. She was almost emotionless, and her face, streaked with dirt marks, looked like a permanent stare of a doll.

Prudence rolled her eyes. "Will you stop that, Sadie? You're making the whole fucking situation worse than it already is?"

"Think about it, Prudence. I told you earlier. It's all like putting a bunch of mice in a maze and cheese at the end. They all go through the tubes, fighting eachother to find the cheese first, but when they find it, they lock all of the mice up in cages and start again. Turn the mice into students and you have the program".

"I'm not a lab rat", J.C snapped.

"You are, J.C. I am, Mitch is, and everyone else on this island is. Who am I kidding? I don't even know what I'm talking about, right? I'm just Sadie Mercedes; the anorexic sister of that sociopath kid Jude, right?"

"I never thought that!" Terry said instantly.

J.C raised an eyebrow from behind her magazine. "I did!"

"_Shut up, J.C_!" everybody screamed in unison.

As J.C returned to reading her magazine, Mitch pictured himself finally getting the cheese at the end of the maze and only having it pulled away at the last second. Was Sadie right? Was the winner of the program simply killed afterwards and the new batch of students shipped in directly after?

Struggling not to think about it, Mitch lay back on the bale of hay to hear his wristwatch tick again.

_Tick…Skylar…._

_Tick…Jesse…_

_Tick…Kevin…_

And maybe, eventually….

_Tick…Adam.._

* * *

"_What other vegetables do we need in the soup, Shyla?"_

_Amber Prescott spoke these words in Ms.Latenio's cooking class. Because Amber was not exactly a good student, usually bringing home test scores that her parents would never put in the living room with her cheerleading trophies, she had thought taking a cooking class would be a fairly good way to maintain her grade point average and get the credits she needed to graduate into her sophomore year._

_When Shyla signed up, Amber prayed that her little, "Amber Prescott fan club", would not follow her into the class. However, by the time she realized this, it was too late; the entire cheerleading team, including Erin, Victoria, and Adrienne, had somehow fought their way onto the class list. Sometimes, Amber wished she could just have a class alone with her best friend Shyla._

_Shyla glanced down at the ingredients as Amber piled the carrots and broccoli onto the counter. Victoria and Erin, standing nearby with their aprons, were busily cutting up the vegetables and gossiping._

"_I think we need one more carrot", Shyla said, reading off the list. "Oh, and I think you forgot the pepper. We don't really have a lot of time left to boil the soup, so you should probally hurry up"._

_Nodding, Amber turned around and hurried back to the miniature fridge in their kitchen. As she was retrieving the pepper and carrot, a red nail gently tapped her on the shoulder._

"_Amber…"_

_Spinning around with the vegetables in her arms, Amber used all of her self-control not the groan when she saw it was none other than Adrienne Spring. She was hunched over the black stove and boiling the water as steam rose up past her permanently smiling face._

"_Check out the nerd group over there"._

_There were fifteen students in Ms.Latenio's cooking class, meaning three groups of five at each individual kitchen. In the back corner of the room, Meyerhold Zemeckis was slaving over his stove as the steam rose up over the foggy glasses of Mae Yamamoto, who was glancing into the pot of soup like it was as complicated as one of the parabolic algebra questions she had been so successful at solving. Logan Spruce, taking up half of their small kitchen, was struggling to put on her cooking apron over her bloated belly. Two other students, Kyle Pratt and Hannah Broach, from other classes, were busily cutting vegetables on the cutting board as Kyle fingered with his zits. According to Adrienne, it was, in fact, the, "nerd group"._

_Knowing Adrienne was planning something, Amber cocked an eyebrow. "What are you planning?"_

"_How about we play a trick on Mae Yamamoto? I have the perfect idea"._

_The moment Amber registered the words, "Mae", and, "trick", in the same seconds, her mind instantly blocked out Adrienne's words. Nearly every day, Amber would let herself be manipulated by Amber into embarrassing the unpopular students. Even when Amber refused to do anything, Adrienne would still find a way to make the situation look like Amber was the cruel and vicious bully. It angered her that Adrienne had made her appear to be a stereotypical bratty cheerleader._

"_So, anyway, we'll go up to her and-_

_Walking away immeadidly, leaving Adrienne in the middle of a sentence, Amber walked past Victoria and Erin cutting the vegetables and hurried back to Shyla. She handed her the pepper and carrots clutched in her arms like a merchant at a market. _

_In the kitchen beside them, Mitch Kelley, along with Adam Spencers, Peter Juntz, and the Igolovosky twins, was shredding what appeared to be a green pepper with a grater, clicking the piercing on his tongue in rhythm with the metal grinding. _

_They were almost done preparing the soup, too…_

_Angrily, Amber fumbled past Adrienne and shuffled the grater out of the cabinet. Clenching it tightly, she shoved the pepper against it roughly, dripping the greenish white juice down her fingers._

"_Amber, you're going to cut yourself if you're not careful', Shyla warned. "Here, let me grate the pepper. You can help Adrienne boil the water"._

_Turning back toward Adrienne, Amber gulped. She was chewing gum with her rosy lips and stirring the watery soup like she was charming evil spirits. Having no other choice, Amber returned to her friend as the sound of the chewing gum echoed like splashing water._

"_Hello Adrienne…'_

_Adrienne grinned with her big mouth. "Welcome back Amber. So, are you ready to mess around with Mae Yamamoto?"_

_Amber rolled her eyes as she glanced over at innocent Mae in the back of the room. She was writing something down on the ingredient sheet and smiling sheepishly at something Logan Spruce had said to her. _

"_Adrienne, I'm not going to pick on Mae Yamamoto again. I mean, the last time I did it, I almost got suspended. The big football game is coming up in a couple of weeks and I have to be there to lead the cheerleading team. My whole family is coming to watch me"._

_Adrienne rolled her eyes. She stopped stirring the watery soup, causing it to burn and sizzle. "Well, then your family is going to miss out on getting another trophy to put in the living room"._

_Leaving the wooden spoon in the sizzling soup, Adrienne Spring grinned triumphantly, fluffed out her cooking apron, and began to walk across the cooking room; directly toward Mae Yamamoto's cooking group. Sensing danger for Mae, Amber gulped and quickly began to follow Adrienne._

"_Six more minutes to start boiling the soup and sample taste!" Ms.Latenio chirped from her desk. "You're all doing a great job! Especially Kitchen B! You did a wonderful job boiling the soup, Peter!"_

_Rushing over, Amber watched as Adrienne stopped dead in her tracks in front of Mae's kitchen of outcasts. Chewing her gum loudly, she raised her eyebrow, craned her neck slowly back, and faced Amber._

"_What do you think of that rumor about Nathan Carpenter getting an A on the science exam, Amber?"_

_Amber stared, unsure of Adrienne's intentions. "There is no rumor at all. He got an A; he's the best at science in our entire grade. In fact, that test was easy. Everybody got an A on it"._

"_So, you're saying you think the test was really easy?"_

_Amber nodded, choosing her words carefully. "Yeah. I mean, it was eighth grade science, anyway. You'd have to be as smart as a middle schooler not to pass it"._

_Adrienne gasped dramatically, suddenly raising her voice so everybody in the entire cooking room could hear her. "What? Are you saying my good friend Mae here is an idiot?"_

_The moment Mae spun around from her pot of soup, Amber felt her skin crawl. Despite being the smartest girl in their grade, Mae had accidentally skipped a question on the exam and answered everything wrong; she had answered question eight with the answer to question seven, question nine with the answer to question eight, and so on._

_And Adrienne had just twisted her words into insulting this poor girl._

_Her eyes filled with tears, Mae cried out defenselessly and sobbed something that sounded like, "Amber…why?" Quickly untying and throwing her cooking apron the ground, Mae adjusted her watery glasses, sniffled, and dashed out the door._

"_Dear?" Ms.Latenio asked, shocked. "Honey, come back!"_

_As Mrs.Latenio rose from her desk and left the room hurriedly, telling everyone to continue working as she found out what was wrong with Mae, Adrienne smirked like a gremlin at Amber before strutting back to their kitchen. Horrified, and knowing everybody thought she was even more of a cheerleading bully than she was before, Amber stared out like a deer to headlights and she walked back to Shyla's side._

"_What was that all about?" Shyla said, alarmed. "Did Adrienne do something? Amber?"_

_Amber said nothing, but merely whimpered as she picked up the carrot and began to grate it. Every thick cut into the carrot stung her ears, almost sounding like Adrienne chewing her gum. The sound of the splitting carrot was followed by the metallic clink of it hitting the counter top; the same sound of Adrienne's cavities and gold fillings made when she chewed gum… _

_Thuck…Thuck…Clink…Clink…_

_The noise went on as Mae Yamamoto sobbing in the hallway rung distantly through Amber's ears._

* * *

Amber Prescott (Girl #13) woke up screaming as she sprung up from the sand dune.

For a second, she was sure she was in her room, covered in pink wallpaper and stuffed animals, and it was a Saturday. She would wake up, go with Shyla to the mall, and hopefully avoid any girls that pestered her. However, feeling the metal program collar around her neck, the truth came spiraling back, almost making Amber faint.

Glancing around, she saw Shyla staring out across the beach at Adrienne's fort, almost like they were playing a violent version of capture-the-flag. Rubbing her head, she stretched her tired body and crawled over to Shyla's side.

"How's your migraine?"

"Better. Victoria keeps staring at us, though", Shyla noted. "Erin doesn't seem to care about anything anymore, and Adrienne is just relaxing and watching the water. It looks like she went out for a day at the beach, for god's sake!"

"I keep trying to convince myself this is a day at the beach", Amber moaned, still stretching. "But then I hear someone screaming once in awhile and I remember I'm in the program".

Shyla forced herself to smile, nestling her hand in a friendly gesture against Amber's shoulder. "Y'know, not awhile ago, a cruise ship passed. It's one of those cruise ships for billionaires when they invest in the program and bid on it. Some of them were cheering your name".

"Really?"

She nodded. "When they saw Adrienne, she danced on the sand to get them cheering for her. It was horrible to watch. Besides everyone here on the beach, they yelled out a couple of other names…. Lea….Chris Barrister….Jude….Darren Warner. Do you think any of them are playing the game?"

Amber shrugged. "Well, I guess at least one of them has to be, right?"

"Maybe. Anyway, we have Victoria's pistol, so they're definitely not coming anywhere near here for awhile. You got rid of your sledgehammer, right?"

Amber nodded bitterly. Her weapon had been too heavy for her and she had discarded it immeadidly.

"My butter knife is still in my backpack", Shyla continued. "But it's not going to be much help. Erin has that brick and Adrienne has a toothbrush. We have the only real weapon here". She paused for a second before moving on. "You missed the body count".

Amber's eyes widened. "I did?"

"Risa Ridgeway and Nicole Zaun".

Amber shuddered, seeing the faces of the two dead girls flash before her eyes. Nicole was a fairly short girl who was a talented artist, a fairly good student, and a companion of Sadie Mercedes. Risa was their optimistic class president, and Amber couldn't remember a moment in time when she had let anybody be upset when she was around; she was like the guardian angel of Spanish Rivers.

"I don't know why it scares me, but I don't want to hear the next body count", Amber sighed. "Seven people already is enough. Nobody else deserves this. Not even..."

Amber glanced down at the pistol against the sand dune and shuddered. They could simply shoot their three former friends right now and continue onward with the competition. But how could they do something so horrible? How could Amber even think something like that? Was she becoming like Adrienne?

Pushing the thought away, Amber looked up to see Shyla was smiling at her.

"Amber", she began. "I don't know if this makes much sense, and I'm not sure why I'm even saying it, but thanks for being my friend".

* * *

Zane Barrens (Boy #1) was surprised at how miniscule the campsite of Chris Barrister (Boy #2) was.

Aside from a shabby fort of sticks sticking into the murky bog water and a wet tree beside it, stenched with a smell that showed the boys had urinated on it as a toilet, the small ground beside the bog was their campsite.

His mouth was still throbbing from losing his teeth, and it didn't help at all that he was relatively sure he had swallowed one. He felt an unpleasant lump in his stomach as Eddie Dunnerman (Boy #4), the linebacker, and Preston Tracy (Boy #18), the tortured mascot of the football team, lugged him into the campsite by the duct tape they had imprisoned him in.

"Hey Chris, look!" Eddie suddenly cried, pointing out into the bog.

Beside a tattered remains of a log, along with several footprints that were still clearly visible, several bread rolls covered in plastic and water bottles bobbed in the bog. Sticking out by the gauge, a sniper rifle edged out along with a pistol that was laying against the log.

Almost instantly, Zane recognized the rifle as the weapon J.C had stolen from him, and the pistol belonging to J.C Brooke (Girl #1) herself. _What had happened?_

"Thank the lord!" Chris's voice, from behind them, yelped. "More shit to torture you with Zane, ol' buddy!"

They dropped him roughly beside the urine-stenched tree, instantly causing him to discover that not only urine was on it. He struggled to hide his nose from the rancid smell, but it was too much; he vomited, letting it drip onto the tree and pass the loose duct tape they had taken off over his mouth.

Everything J.C has stolen was here, so what had happened to her? She hadn't been in the announcement, so she had to be alive. But what did she have to defend herself, now? She was alone on an island where nobody would think twice about protecting somebody like her. She was teetering on the edge of her life until Zane found her.

"I don't feel right about this", Preston said again. His face was still bruised from the last slap, but he still didn't seem to have learned. "Can't we at least move him away from the tree we're all using as a toilet? That's really gr-

The sound of Chris Barrister cocking Zane's own rifle echoed behind his ears. Almost instantly, small and timid Preston gave a frightened squeal and wove his hands wildly in front of him.

"You see, Preston", Chris's voice said. "When you're a mascot, it should be a privilege to help out the football team. Now, you aren't being very courteous of me, and after all, I'm the quarterback. Does that seem right, Preston?"

When Preston didn't answer, Zane listened to Chris laugh like a hyena, followed by brainless Eddie joining in like a chorus. They were like animals, and they were actually having fun during the competition. He had to get out of here, but to where? He was the juvenile delinquent bully of his grade; they all despised him, especially Mitch Kelley. Why had he always been rude and obnoxiously picked on all of his classmates? Was it really because of what Skylar or Jesse had said; they all just had something that he didn't?

No, that wasn't true. He had been the leader of his group, and they had all respected him. Well, that was before his cruel tyranny had caused Skylar Tierren (Boy #17) and Jesse Morgan (Girl #10) to commit suicide. But now, Zane truly saw what tyranny over a group was.

It was called Chris Barrister.

"Now Zane", Chris's voice said from behind him, obviously pointing the rifle right at his head. "You're coated in duct tape, so you obviously can't run. I would talk if I were you. Before you die, I want you to tell the truth. Who killed Jesse and Skylar?"

"They killed themselves!" Zane roared, a string of vomit hanging from his mouth. "They used Rory's sleeping pills to kill themselves".

"Bullshit! You were right next to their bodies! You're a cold-blooded murderer".

Eddie, mindlessly, agreed. "Yeah, a cold-blooded murderer!"

Zane closed his eyes, preparing himself for the bullet that would penetrate the bony cradle of his brain. He thought about his mellow life before the competition. _Riding his bike to the river with J.C to burn things; he had been disturbed, but he had enjoyed himself. Going to see the new American adaptation of a Japanese movie with Skylar after school…They hadn't understood the subtitles but there had been enough gore to make up for it…Wake up…Go to lake…Go to school…Wake up…Burn…_

"_I'm going to die", _Zane thought. "_This is it"._

He found himself almost making up the end of the competition in his head. The winner turned out to be of all people, J.C Brooke (Girl #1). She had ended up brutally killing obnoxious Mitch Kelley during the final seconds and had finally returned home to Spanish Rivers. And right after that, the fucking government started planning the next competition…

_Nice job winning, J.C. Good luck…_

And that was when he heard the sounder of the gun screech out into the afternoon air of Cuna Cielo, spitting out a barrage of bullets.

However, instead of him, what followed was Chris Barrister yelling out in agony.

The bullets had all pierced through the first layer of his skin, becoming lodged inside like perfectly round boils in his arm. A thin line, where the bullets had entered, pierced down Chris's arm in a bloody incision. His face was pale, completely shocked.

And holding the carbines of the gun was Preston Tracy (Boy #18).

"Before you kill him", Preston said, trembling like a frightened kitten. "Y-Y-Y-You should keep him longer. We'll watch him lose his mind. Doesn't that sound like a good idea?"

"_You shot me_!"

In a matter of seconds, Preston had been pummeled by nearly six punches from both Eddie and Chris. Deliriously, bruised and beaten, he fainted to the wet ground of the campsite raggedly as the rifle dropped to the murky floor of the bog.

The trigger clicked softly, with no result, indicating the gun was on safety all along…

"You don't have the balls to kill me, Chris, do you?" Zane said, finally understanding. "You just want to look impressive in front of Preston and Eddie".

Chris glared. "Shut up! But Preston was right. We'll keep you a little longer, Zane. Consider it charity for your life. But if you put one toe out of line, a bullet is going straight through your brain. But until then…".

Whistling thoughtfully, and cringing from the nerves in his arm twitching from the blood loss, Chris reached into Preston's backpack and carefully pulled out the nearly finished roll of gray duct tape. Quickly, he tore off a final piece, sticking it firmly onto Zane's bleeding and vomit-covered mouth.

"I'm tired of your tough little voice".

* * *

Some people move on easily. No matter how big the grudge is that they could hold, they would learn to forget and regret, moving on like nothing had ever happened. Some people are liked that.

Perry Rumbaugh (Girl #15) wasn't.

Looking through the crooked mirror in the barn's kitchen, as Leana Devora (Girl #2) and June Harrison (Girl #4) giggled at the kitchen counter, she surveyed her appearance. All in all, she was a fairly decent looking girl. Her skin was tan, blending in perfectly with her long and braided black hair and bronzed and serious half-Asian face. And to top it off, there was an explosive collar around her neck.

However, none of this was enough to impress Leana Devora (Girl #2).

Ever since they had wet their beds and drew on the walls, Leana and Perry had been inseparable. From riding their tricycles down the street as children to walking down the rivers and playing, "pretending games", it looked like they would always be together. They had been more than best friends; they cared about eachother almost as sisters.

However, during fifth grade, when the opposite genders were finally beginning to notice eachother, Perry noticed she wasn't exactly staring in the right direction. She remembered hiding under the bleachers at cheerleading practice, watching Amber Prescott sail through the air in her tight and beautiful skirt over her athletic and thin body. Something about it caused Perry to wonder. And by the time this hopeful wondering turned into a realization, Perry was confident and proud of her sexuality. In fact, she even knew who she was in love with: Leana.

Unfortunately, at the same time where the opposite sexes began to notice eachother, students also began to form middle school cliques and exclusive groups. While Perry, being fairly intelligent, became one of the science club members, Leana, always athletic and excelling at sports, became fairly popular on the lacrosse team with the athletic girls, especially June Harrison (Girl #4). Before September of sixth grade had passed, the, "best friend", relationship of June Harrison and Leana Devora was well-known and nobody had any clue who Perry Rumbaugh was.

However, she didn't care. All she knew was that she would never forgive or regret. She would hold a grudge against the world, especially June Harrison (Girl #4), who had stolen Leana away from her. Even if Leana was straight, which she was, it mattered more than ever, especially in a situation like the program.

"Perry?"

Turning around from the mirror, Perry forced herself to smile at the slightly plump face of June Harrison (Girl #4). Behind her, Leana Devora was blowing up several balloons, which sadly, had turned out to be her weapon. June's weapon, a hot glue gun, was nestled softly in her bag while Perry's, an M16 machine gun, lay, tempting her, on the kitchen counter.

"Did you give them the sandwiches?" June asked, excitedly. "I thought we put too much wheat in the dough, but I think it turned out-

"June, do we have any idea what we're doing?"

June stared. "Huh?"

Perry sighed, unprepared for what she was about to say. "Prudence Mercedes said that we have no clue what we're doing other than helping people. When the third day comes, we'll probally still be here baking dough and giving out medicine".

"But we're helping peopl-

"Yeah, but is that enough?"

There was an awkward silence between the girls, only punctuated by the sound of Leana blowing up balloons, for no good reason at all to Perry, behind them. Finally, for no good reason once more, June giggled.

"Don't worry, Perry. We know exactly what we're doing. You know, you're pretty cool. I wish I hung out with you more back at Spanish Rivers".

"Thanks", Perry lied, forcing herself not to grit her teeth. "You're cool, too".

As June strutted away back toward Leana, Perry thought more and more about her grudge. June was a monster; she had stolen Leana away from her and now she would never know how Perry really felt. That was all Perry wanted; she wanted Leana to feel her before those last seconds of the third day ticked away.

With a sigh, she walked over to the counter where Leana was still busily blowing up the balloons with her slightly swollen and blue lips. Her eyes, always fixated like an animal staring at headlights, were directly forward, not even glancing at Perry. It almost made her want to cry.

"Leana?"

Leana nodded, blowing air into the balloon and watching it inflate to the size of her head quickly.

"Do you remember how we were friends?"

Leana stared. "Excuse me?"

"We were friends. Remember? Me? When we were little kids?"

"_She has to remember_", Perry thought. "_June couldn't have made her forget this much. I_ _hate June. I'm never going to let myself forget what she did to Leana. We weren't just friends, Leana. We were much more, and you never knew_".

For a second, she could have been speaking in a foreign language to Leana Devora. Then, compassionately, she smiled warmly.

"Of course I remember, Perry", Leana said. "I wouldn't have invited you into our group if I didn't. We just sort of stopped hanging out with eachother; it happens a lot. But we're still best friends, right? You just got into your math club and I got into my lacrosse and-

"Science", Perry said, coldly. "I got into my science club and you got into your lacrosse. Not math".

That was more than enough for her. June had destroyed her friend, and now, Perry's grudge was greater than ever. June had no clue what it meant to be in love; or more importantly, find out you were in love with your best friend who was the same gender as you. Perry had never told her parents she was a lesbian, but for some reason, the guilt that she hadn't told Leana was much worse. It ate away at her, almost begging to be let out at any minute.

"Right", Leana said, still smiling. "Your science club. Hey, could you do me a favor? I dropped some aspirin out in the main room of the barn when I was coming back from the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. Can you go get it?"

For a second, Perry was about to comply. But that was before she locked eyes on June Harrison (Girl #4) again, who's blonde hair was swaying softly with her head in the fridge. The grudge was coursing through her, inching through every vein and pour until Perry Rumbaugh (Girl #15) was practically breathing anger.

"Only if June comes with me", Perry said.

For a second, Leana looked slightly surprised. But then, her face faded back to its normal bubbly smile. "Whatever! You guys can go together if you want. I'll stay here and start working on dinner for later on. I want it to be really special for everyone. You know, I feel bad for Nathan and Adam. It looked like they wanted to help with dinner, but I sent them back in the room. Three girls is enough to make a good dinner".

With a shrug, June heaved her backpack over her shoulder and marched out the wooden door. As Perry followed, it was almost like she was on fire. Every inch of her was breathing anger at her grudge against June, vowing to never forgive or forget what she had done. She was a monster; she had taken away Perry's only love and was treating her like a, "friend", instead of what Leana truly was.

As they walked out the door, leaving Leana behind in the kitchen, Perry instantly noticed that Adam Spencers (Boy #15) and Nathan Carpenter (Boy #16) were both slouched against the wall to the stables, where the rest of the visitors all were.

"Why are you guys here?" June asked, slightly surprised.

"Mitch is being an asshole", Adam sighed. "Long story. I really don't want to talk about it…"

Passing the two boys slouched against the wall, Perry instantly spotted the bottle of aspirin in the middle of the barn floor, almost like it had been purposelessly dropped there. The entire barn smelled like horses and sweat, not much different than Perry's feelings for June.

"Why did you want me to come with you?" June asked.

"Oh, I'm bad at finding things", Perry sighed. "I didn't want to look stupid in front of Leana when I couldn't find a bottle of pills".

"Well, it doesn't matter. They're right here in the middle of the floor!"

Smiling, like the mindless witch Perry knew she was, June hunched over to pick up the pills. At that point, Perry knew the grudge was uncontrollable now; she had become the grudge herself. All she was now was a living manifestation of anger and lost love. She was confused; just because her love was different didn't mean it shouldn't happen. Leana needed to know how she felt by the end of the program, and this monster being around would ruin the few moments Perry had left of her life.

Quickly, Perry kicked the bottle of aspirin with the heel of her shoe, sending it spinning around the barn floor and under a wooden barrel in the corner of the room. For a second, June stared bewildered at her. Then, she glared in annoyance.

"That wasn't very nice. I thought you invited me out here to help you look for the aspirin!"

"I'm sorry", Perry sighed, struggling to come up with an excuse. "I have clumsy feet".

Rolling her eyes, June quickly crawled over to the barrel, eyeing under it like she was glancing for monsters under her bed. Quietly, Perry reached into her exposed backpack, doing her best to not make any noise as it loosened open.

"I don't see it", June whined, her eyes nearly closed from squinting. "Why'd you kick it away?"

Perry didn't answer. Instead, feeling the grudge inside her eating at her heart, she pulled out the wire of the hot glue gun from June's backpack, followed by the hot glue gun itself that came dangling after.

_Leana didn't know her anymore. She would never feel her now. They had no plans. They wouldn't get off the island…_

And it all boiled down to June Harrison (Girl #4).

Tightening the cord of the hot glue gun cord like an elastic band, Perry shrieked in rage as she swung the cord tightly around June's neck.

* * *

**No Students Eliminated**

* * *

**35 Students Remaining**

* * *

**Yep, a cliffhanger. Find out what happened to June and Perry in the next chapter! I'll tell you right now that Leana blowing up her balloons she recieved as a weapon is actually REALLY important for the next chapter. You'll find out soon.**


	15. Day 1: Hour 13: 35 Students Remaining

The face of June Harrison (Girl #4) swelled into a purple turnip, followed by a white and pale onion. Her throat made an odd wretching sound, incapable of breathing as Perry Rumbaugh (Girl #15) tightened the hot glue gun cord tighter and tighter on her plump throat. June's arms uselessly clawed at the cord, but it was no use; pulling the tightening cord off her neck would be like pulling an oak tree out of the ground.

"Eghhh…_Eghhh_!"

Perry edged her foot into the monster's back, tightening the cord even harder on June's throat.

June had taken Leana away from her. Almost like a butterfly in a net, she had carried Leana away to the dreaded outskirts of the lacrosse team. After becoming a popular athlete, Leana had ignored Perry like she was an insect. Before Perry had even be able to tell Leana her true feelings, she had discarded her like a child's toy to be friends with June Harrison.

All she needed was that one moment alone with Leana. Like Prudence had said, they would not survive anyway, so there was truly no point in trying to live any longer. She would leave June's corpse here, walk into the kitchen, and finally confess her feelings to Leana. It would be a moment of solitude in the barn's kitchen, with them the only ones in the universe. After that, Perry would calmly take her M16 from the counter and unload a clip into both of their stomachs. _It would be a quick and easy removal to where Leana and her would pass on to the next life, together forever…_

But what if Leana didn't return her feelings back? After all, Leana was straight; she didn't feel the intensity of being in love with your best friend that Perry had felt. But that didn't matter. The feelings in Perry were like a hot and humid day in a wet summer, and she needed a fan. And Leana was better than a fan; she was a full-blown air conditioner.

"Holy shit!"

Perry craned her neck to see Adam Spencers (Boy #15) and Nathan Carpenter (Boy #16) dashing out of the barn with their backpacks flailing, obviously having just seen what had happened. She would have to pray that Mitch and the others, who were still in the stables, hadn't heard his screaming.

Finally, struggling no longer, June's arms fell limply to her side. Her eyes were inflated with broken capillaries from the lack of oxygen, and her tongue was nearly the size of a rotten and swollen sausage resting in her mouth. June's face, almost like a monkey's, was as lifeless and pale as her eyes, which gazed up silently at the barn ceiling she could see no more.

Struggling to hold back her tears, Perry gently rested June's body to the floor, quietly kicked the aspirin across the floor, and folded up the hot glue gun cord evenly around it before finally resting it back in June's unzipped backpack.

June was a corpse.

It was hard to comprehend, but Perry had transformed June Harrison into a monkey-faced corpse. She blinked, still not believing what had happened. Merely minutes ago, she had been in the kitchen where they had busily been fetching medicine and cooking food. Hours before that, an unknown class had been awaiting a field trip on the front lawn.

For Perry Rumbaugh (Girl #15), things, like Leana, happened fast. Sometimes, it was best to ignore them until the time came.

Feeling her legs tremble, almost like stage fright, Perry aimlessly forced herself up from the ground. She wandered to the stable door, where amazingly, she heard mildly interested talking. Nobody had heard the sound of June being strangled to death or Adam fleeing with his friend. Quietly, Perry's hand slipped to the hinge and quickly locked the door.

"_I don't regret_", she thought. "_No matter what, I'm not regretting what June did. She deserved it, and she deserved to suffer for what she turned Leana into. I don't forgive or forget something like that_".

Whimpering softly, Perry forced herself not to glance at June's corpse in the corner of the barn. Her collar, which had been blinking to correspond with her heartbeat, had detached after her pulse had stopped.

Stiffening herself up, Perry glanced at the entrance to the kitchen. It would be the last room she would ever see before her life ended, as well as Leana's. But it was okay, because after those bullets pierced their bony cradles, they would be together forever.

Smiling, and closing her eyes, Perry Rumbaugh whimpered one last time before reaching her hand for the cobwebbed doorknob.

* * *

_Amber Prescott, wearing a frilly pink dress, sulked as she traipsed into the gym holding Chris Barrister's bulky hand. Behind her, her clique of giggling cheerleaders brought up the rear, each holding a member of the football team by hand. Mae Yamamoto, looking like she had made a terrible mistake, was staring at the ground as Meyerhold Zemeckis, who was holding her hand, angrily glanced in the other direction. Winston Van Buren and Demi Marigold, both talking enthusiastically, had just stepped out of Demi's mother's gray van._

"_They're different than me", Perry thought, surveying her classmates. "I'm different than all of them. They're all dating the way it's supposed to be. Boy and girl, right?"_

_Even though Perry prided how her sexual nature was different than her classmates, she had been too frightened to reveal her secret to the entire class. Instead of inviting a girl to the dance, Perry had faced no other choice but to invite a boy._

"_Perry?"_

_Craning her neck, Perry glanced at Mitch Kelley who was standing behind her. He had a fairly handsome face, but besides that, he was an average boy. The only thing that made him particular was that he had a badly stitched tongue piercing and a mop of shaggy hair on his head._

"_Hi Mitch!"_

_Mitch forced a smile, but Perry could see something was troubling him. She was good at figuring people out._

"_What's wrong?"_

_Mitch sighed. "Well, you're a nice girl and everything, and I appreciate that you asked me to the dance, but I don't really know you at all. What made you suddenly want to talk to me?"_

"_Don't be silly!" Perry lied. "I always liked you!"_

_The truth was that Perry had asked out Mitch, an average guy who she thought indifferently about, for an entirely different purpose. Now that he was here, all she had to do was find Leana to continue with her plan for the evening._

_Clutching Mitch's hand tightly, Perry lead the way into the gym through the mob of students bustling into the gym. Risa Ridgeway, their class president, had organized a decorative gym full of blue streamers and flickering neon lights through a fundraiser. In fact, she had done such a phenomenal job at decorating the gym that it made Perry's job of finding Leana even harder._

"_Do you see Leana, Mitch?" Perry asked, glancing around._

_Mitch raised his eyebrow. "Leana Devora? Umm...I don't think so. So, do you want to dance or something?"_

_Ignoring Mitch, Perry instantly spotted Leana. She was laughing at the punch bowl with the entire lacrosse team, her face red and sweaty from dancing and laughing with her friends. June Harrison was beside her, giggling and causing her monkey-like face to bob up and down. Standing in the center, apparently telling a story, was the captain of the lacrosse team, J.C Brooke. Besides being a juvenile delinquent and a member of Zane's gang, J.C also happened to be fairly athletic; so athletic that she had become the captain of the girl's lacrosse team in merely several weeks. The only girl that surpassed her in strength was Prudence Mercedes, who, along with her brother and sister, had failed to arrive at the dance. _

_So every girl in the lacrosse team was left to impress and suck up to J.C Brooke._

"_C'mon, Mitch!"_

_Hurrying over, Perry edged her way through the crowd until she finally reached Leana and tapped her shoulder. Leana's red face, still having her eyes like a deer in the headlights, widened even larger as they turned to Perry._

_Leana stared. "Yeah?"_

_Perry smiled brightly. "Hi Leana! I have a boyfriend! His name is Mitch! I thought you might like to meet him! He's really cool!"_

_For a second, Leana and the rest of the lacrosse team, including J.C and June, merely stared blankly at her. Then, bemused, Leana cocked her eyebrow._

"_That's nice you have a boyfriend, kid", Leana said. "But I don't know you at all. Why are you talking to me?"_

"_Leana, we were best friends in elementary school! Remember? I know you remember! You couldn't have forgotten!"_

_J.C Brooke cackled like a witch. "Leana, do you know her?"_

_Instantly, Leana's face lit up in worry, and Perry instantly understood the situation. Leana didn't want J.C Brooke to know that she was former friends with an unathletic outcast like Perry Rumbaugh. She simply wanted to impress the captain of the lacrosse team and become popular._

_Leana had been absorbed into the social ladder and there was nothing Perry could so about it._

_Leana laughed. "No! I've never seen here before in my entire life! I wonder why she would even talk to me!"_

"_You're weird", June Harrison sighed, slurping cherry punch. "Go bother someone else"._

"_Or better yet", J.C cooed. "Hey, June! Help me with the punch bowl"._

_It happened in a matter of seconds. Gripping the punch bowl, and whistling thoughtfully, June and J.C smiled maniacally as they dumped the entire vial of fruit punch on top of Perry. She shrieked, feeling her entire dress become red and wet and feeling the juice drip down her blouse in a waterfall. _

_And as the fruit punch covered her like a flash flood, Perry glanced at Leana. She was smiling. Leana, her childhood friend whom she had discovered she had loved for years, now thought indifferently of her. They were strangers now, and it was all thanks to June Harrison, whom Leana had befriended in the lacrosse team, and J.C Brooke, whom both of the two pigs attempted to impress. And now, she had used Mitch Kelley to impress Leana, but it had backfired horribly._

_She wouldn't forget. She would hold a grudge against the world forever, knowing now that love could never exist when a monster like June, J.C, or even Leana was in the world._

"_Go home", Leana said. "Get out of that dress, take a shower, and never talk to us ever again"_

_And the worst part was, Perry still loved her._

* * *

The moment Perry Rumbaugh (Girl #15) opened the door, she locked eyes on Leana Devora (Girl #2), who had finished blowing up her bag of balloons for a purposeless reason. She had just placed something under the cabinet, likely dinner, and was now busily washing the dishes with a dirty rag in the sink.

"Leana", Perry called.

When Leana craned her neck, she could have said many things. But instead, the worst three words somehow ended up caught at the top of her throat and were sputtered out of her mouth.

"I killed June".

Leana stared back at her, resembling a deer in headlights more than ever now. Her jaw dropped open, but for some reason, no words came out.

"W-W-what did you say, Perry?"

Feeling her anger finally rupture inside her, Perry shrieked in rage and made a frantic dash for the counter. Quickly, she grasped her M16, feeling heavy and bulky in her tan and bronzed arms. Her fingers, still stained with the blood of June Harrison (Girl #4), instantly cocked the enormous weapon with brutal force, scraping her fingernails against the polished metal.

"Strangled her with the hot glue gun", Perry recited. "She reached for the aspirin, I flung the cord around her neck, and I strangled her. Adam and Nathan ran outside". She breathed heavily, feeling her sweat trickle down her neck. "Her body is right outside this room".

Once again, Leana didn't say anything. She merely stood, backed into the counter, staring at Perry like she was a deer peering at a hunter.

Perry felt wet tears, blurring her eyes, beginning to trickle down her cheeks. The facts were simple and true; she had killed June.

"I love you, Leana!" Perry yelped, not even knowing what she was saying anymore. "I know you don't love me, and I know you're not like me, but I'm in love with you! I know we can't be together, but I don't care! And June stole you away and turned you against me! _I didn't know what to do_! B-B-But there's bullets in this gun! There's enou-

And at that moment, Perry's words that they wouldn't be together proved correct. It wasn't because of Perry's intense feelings, or Leana's confusion and horror, or June's corpse in the room next door.

It was because of the round of bullets that spit evenly into Leana's stomach when Perry's fingers, trembling and sweaty, accidentally pulled the trigger.

"_No_!"

With a barrage of the sound of a typewriter, Leana was blown backwards onto the counter like the wind had swept her off her feet. The air stung with gunsmoke, causing a gray mist to form around Leana's tattered and bullet-ridden stomach. The six bangs, each an even round from her weapon, rung through Perry's ears like clockwork.

Leana Devora (Girl #2) fell limply onto the floor, popping several balloons. The blue snakes of her intestines from her thin lacrosse player stomach had been blown apart, along with her deer-headlight eyes that were now facing in two completely different directions.

Perry stood still, her mouth agape as she glanced down at Leana's bullet-ridden body. She didn't feel her weapon, spewing gunsmoke, falling to the floor with a clatter of metal. She didn't feel the sudden startled whispering outside the kitchen, indicating that Mitch and the others had suddenly heard the rapid gunshots.

All she felt was Leana.

For a second, Perry swore that she hadn't killed Leana. She had accidentally shot somebody else, somebody unfortunate who had ran right into the path of her bullet.

"_Who was it, though_?' Perry's mind rambled. "_Winston? Mare? Amber? Demi_?"

It could have been absolutely anyone except Leana. It was an amusing idea, because Leana Devora couldn't die. In fact, Perry could remember merely days ago when they had been walking down a riverbank together, giggling like six year-olds.

But that was when she realized it was because they _had_ been six-year olds. Leana hadn't spoken to her in years, and Perry had held a grudge against her.

And that grudge had killed her.

Shrieking, Perry's ankles gave out as she fell to the floor. So many things had been broken. Not just June's life, or Leana's life, but so many other things that would also never be repaired.

Leana coughed, causing a trickle of blood to drip down her cheek. Her deer-headlight eyes, staring forward, dilated slowly as she trembled softly.

"I w-w-w-was just scared of what e-e-e-e-everyone thought…" Leana whispered. "Happy Birthday, P-P-P-P…Erry…".

And with that, Leana Devora (Girl #2), her childhood friend, died in the sea of balloons on the floor.

"_Why did she blow up all of those fucking balloons_?" Perry's mind screamed at her. "_Why did Leana have to die? Now, she was a six-year old again, lost in a crowd of strangers. Except she didn't want her mother. She wanted Leana"._

Perry sobbed into Leana's bloody hair, letting her fingers drift through it. It had all been a horrible triangle of friendship. June, obviously, had befriended Leana. There was nothing more to June's story; she was an innocent girl who had been a causality of war. Both of the girls had struggled to look impressive and popular, ignoring Perry.

And this was exactly why Leana hadn't even remembered whether she was in the science club or not.

In the corner of her eye, Perry suddenly noticed that the cabinet, where Leana had placed something, was slightly curved open. The shadow of something was edging out, and for a second, Perry couldn't believe what it was. She crept on the floor over to the cabinet, swinging the door open.

It was a birthday cake.

It wasn't for Leana, or June, or anybody else in the barn besides one single person. It was Perry's birthday; Leana had remembered.

The cake was decorated beautifully with crisp vanilla frosting, and Leana and June had obviously spent the entire morning busily working on it. It also explained why Leana had blown up all of the balloons. They hadn't been ignoring her, plotting against her, or contemplating anything; they had been planning her birthday party. Even if they were in the program, Leana hadn't cared; she wanted to make the birthday as normal as possible.

However, it wasn't the cake that made Perry sob; it was what was written on it with blue icing.

"**Welcome to the group, Perry**!"

And under that, in golden icing that the girls had found in the fridge, was a single word that described the entire situation. It was a word Perry had forgotten all about, due to the fact she had held a grudge against it for years. It was why June had June had died, and Leana herself had died. It was something that was a foreign concept to somebody like Perry.

"**Friends**".

Letting her tears trickle down her face, Perry eyed the hot glue gun lying in the corner, with the blood of June Harrison still staining the cord. And in the midst of the chaos, Perry finally realized what she had to do.

Closing the door of the cabinet, hiding the cake, Perry gripped the cord of the hot glue gun, opened the door with a quiet creak, and glanced up at the rafters of the barn towering high above June's body.

And finally, deciding her fate, Perry Rumbaugh (Girl #15) began climbing.

* * *

"Gross!"

Roxy Patterson (Girl #12) wrinkled her nose in disgust as she peered through the doorway of the rancid-smelling building. Metal hooks were hanging from the ceiling, and the fresh smell of rotten meat told her that it was a slaughterhouse.

Aside from losing her weapon, a pair of scissors, to Lea Passington earlier that day, nothing very eventful had happened to Roxy in the last several hours. After hiding in a muddy ditch in the woods for several hours, carefully marking her Danger Zones, Roxy had discovered that her sector was becoming forbidden in merely fifteen minutes from now; she needed to relocate quickly and efficiently.

Unfortunately, the closest building had been a foul-smelling slaughterhouse with strips of cattle meat still hanging from the ceiling. As Roxy stepped in, she felt her bare feet soak in an unknown juice on the floor; she didn't want to think of what it was. Her mind was preoccupied with much more important matters.

"_I tried it_", Roxy thought bitterly. "_And I didn't feel a thing_".

While she had been lying in the muddy ditch, Roxy had tried an experiment to see if her personality, or any of her emotions, had truly vanished. Shoveling in mounds of dirt, any second willing to bury herself, Roxy had realized that she wasn't scared; she didn't even care. Once again, the simple fact of the matter was that Roxy had spent so long pretending to be other people when she acted that she had never taken any time to simply be herself.

She wasn't a real person, and the fact that she wasn't scared of dieing proved it.

Her only consolation was that Mare Ewing (Girl #3), her best friend, was still alive, or at least she had been during the last announcement. The announcement had marked the death of Nicole Zaun (Girl #21), as well as their class president Risa Ridgeway (Girl #14). Roxy had always envied them; they both understood themselves.

Glancing up at the dripping carcasses of the cow hanging from the meat hooks, Roxy wrinkled her nose. It really was the most revolting smell she had ever endured. It clogged her nostrils with the smell of rotting meat and blood, causing her throat to wrench.

And in the midst of the smell, the most unlikely smell suddenly blended in with it. At first, Roxy nearly laughed, because the idea of finding drugs in a slaughterhouse was bizarre. But indeed, the smell was, of all things, marijuana.

Fresh pot.

Roxy had only smelt this once before, and it was whenever she was around a certain boy in her class. Almost instantly, Roxy realized there was another student in the slaughterhouse, and she knew exactly who it was.

"Rory?'

Rory North (Boy #13) was hugging his knees in the corner, leaning softly against the rusty, metal staircase. The blurry image of cigarette, shrouded by smoke, was in his dark hands, exhaling up and down as he wheezed in and out of it. His black hair, covering his hair like a mop, made him look like an unwatered plant. He was the pothead of their school, as well as a member of Zane Barren's gang. There were even rumors that his older cousin smuggled marijuana for him.

But why was he huddled in a slaughterhouse alone, without Zane Barrens or anybody else?

"Rory?" Roxy asked, cautiously moving in. Her experience with Lea had taught her that anybody could suddenly decide to play the game, and nobody, not even a gentle pothead like Rory, was an exception.

Roxy's eyes glanced up in a daze, but he didn't say anything. He took another wheeze from the cigarette, sputtering out smoke as he nearly coughed. His eyes were ringed and purple from constant drug-use, and they were even visible in the dim light of the slaughterhouse.

"Rory? It's me, Roxy. Remember? You were in my English class?"

Finally, glancing up, Rory's dazed eyes stared at the floor instead of Roxy. "Hey".

His voice was high for somebody so tough and brutish-looking, and Roxy was surprised that it sounded like a pre-teen going through puberty. In fact, she had never even seen Rory speak until now. He was always quiet.

"Want to smoke?"

Roxy shrugged. "No thanks".

Still not staring at her, Rory flicked away the long cigarette, which Roxy now saw was a bong for smoking marijuana. Somehow, Rory had managed to smuggle it onto the island.

"What's your weapon?" Rory sighed.

"Scissors. Lea Passington took them".

Rory nodded. "Sleeping pills. I don't have them right now, though. They were stolen. It was all just trivial, anyway". Staring longifully at his wet cigarette on the floor, Rory sighed again. "This whole thing is trivial. I just want to go home".

"If you win, you go home".

"Fighting doesn't prove anything, Roxy. If you have a stereotype that I'm violent because I hang out with Zane Barrens, you're a stupid cunt. This is the last place I'd like to be right now".

Roxy shrugged. "Nobody wants to be here. That's why they're all fighting in the first place".

"No one deserves to die for this country, though. Did you know, Roxy, that once you die in the program, you're buried with the government flag in an, "honorable burial?"

"That's…. _disgusting_"

"Tell me about it", Rory replied. "I don't want to die with a flag rotting with my corpse. I always dreamed about leaving this country. And look, now! We're not that far from Mexico!"

Rory laughed, almost like the entire thing was a joke, but he soon began to cough and wheeze from the cigarettes. Roxy was reminded of Mare, who's drug habit had always bothered her.

"_Mare_", Roxy thought. "_She knows I'm a real person_".

Shaking the thought out of her head, Roxy glanced in concern down at Rory, who was wheezing deeply on the ground. "You should probally stop smoking. Especially in the program".

"If you're against my morals or anything, you can piss off. I don't want to talk to you if you're just going to judge me".

"I wish people would judge me", Roxy said, suddenly. "Look at me, Rory. When you look at Roxy Patterson, what do you say. I'm the most ordinary girl in the entire school. No, not just the entire school! Give me one word to describe me, Rory! Please! Before I die, just _fucking_ describe me!"

_It sounded to her like a question on an essay about a book; describe the character of Roxy Patterson in no less than three paragraphs. Five points._

Rory smiled. "You're a whiny and annoying bitch. Happy?"

Turning back toward the ground, Rory reached into the lining of his sweatshirt, pulled out another cigarette, and slowly turned away.

* * *

_"Peter, I want to understand why you would do this"._

_Peter Juntz shuffled in the chair of the guidance office, feeling sweat pour down his blonde wig. His make-up was dripping from sweat, and his entire face felt like it was simmering in boiling water._

_Mrs.Peare, the head guidance counselor of Spanish Rivers High School, stared at Peter Juntz, surveying him closely but not helping him at all, just like a caged animal performing at a zoo. _

_Unable to look at her, Peter glanced through the glass window of the door. J.C Brooke, with a black and swollen eye, sat in the waiting chair, scowling at Prudence Mercedes who was sitting next to her. It was clear what had happened._

_"Peter?"_

_"Look, I don't need help, okay?" Peter sighed. "Just because I cross-dress doesn't make me a raging maniac"._

_"But it means that you cry for attention", Mrs.Peare continued, no emotion on her wrinkly face. "I know there's more to you than you want everyone to know"._

_"What I cry for is none of your business, okay? Please let me go back to class, Mrs.Peare!'_

_The honest truth was that Mrs.Peare was absolutely right. There was actually much more to Peter's motives for cross-dressing than everyone saw, but it was none of her business to study him like an insect under a microscope. _

_"You just started cross-dressing out of nowhere", Mrs.Peare continued. "I just want to know why"._

_"It's simple", Peter snapped, finally annoyed. "I'm a confused and sheltered kid whose emotions are running rampant in his mind, and used cross-dressing as an excuse for his problems. Great. We're done. Can I leave now?'_

_Mrs.Peare scowled. "I would appreciate it if you didn't insult me. Now, if you wouldn't be so rude, we might actually accomplish something"._

_Seeing he would have to spill his guts, Peter sighed. "I don't know why I cross-dress. I always felt like I needed to switch my life around. I was never happy. I mean, I had a good life when I was little. I had a lot of friends, and they all looked up to me. I just never felt happy. I don't know why I chose cross-dressing, but it sounded like the one extreme. It was the biggest thing I could do to completely flip my life around"._

_"Did it work?"_

_"I don't know. I'm still always angry or upset about something, and to top it all off, I lost all of my friends"._

_Mrs.Peare smiled compassionately. "Peter, I think you should just be normal"._

_At first, Peter thought he hadn't heard her correctly. There was no way anyone, especially a guidance counselor, would say something like this._

_"Excuse me?"_

_"You're fighting against everyone because you want to be different. I think you should just sort of go with the flow and be like everyone else. It will help in the long run, and you'll blend in better. You'll see flipping your life around had no meaning"._

_"I hate you", Peter whispered._

_"Excuse me? I didn't hear you, sweetheart"._

_"You're a horrible person!" Peter roared. "Just because someone is different doesn't meant they should become normal to fit in! You know nothing about me, other than that I'm different! You just wanted to use that against me!"_

_For several seconds, Mrs.Peare merely sat there, staring blankly at Peter. Then, whistling thoughtfully, she scribbled something down on a piece of paper and smiled before handing it to Peter._

_"I think yelling at a teacher deserves a detention for the rest of the week after school", she said. "Oh, and when you leave, tell J.C and Prudence to come in. We'll schedule more appointments, Peter. You still need a lot of help"._

_When Peter left, he made sure to slam the door as hard as he could._

* * *

Peter Juntz (Boy #9) flicked a bug off his collar as he carefully watched the window of the school.

For the last several hours, Burke hadn't lain his eyes on them, so Peter was relatively sure they were safe until he decided to terrorize them again for fun. Beside the equipment shed, the Igolovosky twins were carefully leaning up a tube of chlorine from the shed, preparing for the bomb that Peter knew would cause his suicide. However, with that suicide, the life of everyone else would be saved.

"What if Burke looks again?" Tristan asked, worriedly. "Do you think he'll blow up our collars?"

Peter shook his head. "It's illegal to tamper with the players of a program during gameplay. He would be sentenced to death if he tried anything".

"When I get off this island", Travis sighed. "The first thing I want to do is take a big shower of piss all over Burke's face".

"He'll be dead before you unzip your jeans, Travis", Tristan reminded. "The school's blowing up, remember?"

"Along with Peter".

"Can we please stop talking about that?" Tristan sighed. "Please, I really don't want to think about Peter killing himself until it has to happen. It doesn't have to happen, but that's the way he wants it, right Peter".

Peter forced himself to smile, but deep down, his heart was breaking. Tristan Igolovosky (Boy #8) was hopelessly devoted to him as a spiritual leader, but Travis could care less. Deep down, he had more respect for loud-mouthed, arrogant Tristan than quiet and well-mannered Tristan. At least Travis still enjoyed having individuality.

Stretching his neck, Peter glanced at the hole that they had dug to house the chlorine and oil. There was going to be a second hole to house more of the chlorine, but all three of them were overworked and tired from working all morning. They could barely move their tired bodies.

"Does it feel weird knowing you're going to die, Peter?' Tristan asked, nearly wincing.

Peter shrugged. "Because I'm the one killing myself, I guess it doesn't feel that weird. But I feel weird knowing the two of you and everyone else are just going to move on without me".

The sad truth was that many students had already moved on before Peter. Good-natured Skylar, studious and serious Mae, and bubbly and kind Risa were only a few of the unfortunate students who joined the list of Day One. Deep down, Peter felt the deepest sympathy for Mae Yamamoto; being eliminated first in the actual competition was the highest level of embarrassment. But he knew when Mae's time came, she probally didn't care anymore.

"When you guys get off the island", Peter began. "Can you do one thing for me?"

Tristan stared. "Anything".

"Remember me. That's all I want. I don't want the world to just move on without me. Find a way so you'll both remember me. If you can, find a way they'll all remember me. Does that sound selfish?"

"No. Not at all, Peter…"

"Good".

And at that moment, all three of the friends smiled. Not because they knew that Peter would be remembered forever, but because soon, the three of them would narrow down two. Savoring every minute was important.

And Peter couldn't let them down by letting three become zero.

* * *

"Enrique always wanted to prove himself to you, Miguel".

David Rodriguez (Boy #14) spoke these words to Miguel Chavez (Boy #3) as they stared out of the polished attic window of the Krakhoffe Manor.

After the brutal death of Enrique, who had strutted outside in excitement at impressing Miguel, the two boys had decided that venturing outside was a guaranteed death sentence. Collecting their weapons, David's pistol and Miguel's machine gun, they had ventured to the attic like frightened mice scurrying into a mouse hole. Enrique's body was lying limply outside, clearly visible from the attic window, but neither of the two boys had forced themselves to look at it.

"He always told me how he wanted you to like him", David sighed. "I think he was really scared of what you thought of him. He wanted to prove he was as tough as _you_".

The way David stretched the word, "you", made Miguel cringe. David was still completely unaware that Miguel's stories of being a hardened street gangster were complete and utter lies that he had made up to impress his friends. According to David, Miguel had grown up on the streets of New York and had been forced to carry a switchblade on his way home from school. Miguel's story, truthfully, was that he had grown up in the nearby town of Pequeno Rivers and gone to an expensive private school.

His entire life was a lie, and the fact David mindlessly looked up to him didn't make him feel any better.

"Why aren't you calling him Reiki anymore?" Miguel asked, suddenly. "Just because he's dead isn't any reason to not call him by his nickname".

"I don't want to talk about Enrique, Miguel. I don't want to talk about his nickname, or how he left us, or anything at all".

David shuddered, backing into the cramped corner of the attic. The pocket video game he had been playing before Enrique's death had been discarded, and now, he looked lifeless and desolate without it. It was almost like David Rodriguez, loud, tough, and arrogant, had vanished and been replaced by an entirely different person.

Miguel had always been the leader of the group; the cool, calculating, and tough leader. Despite being one of the strongest in his grade, he knew that on the inside, he was weak and brittle like a twig. His emotions were easy to manipulate and offend, and his secret was doing just that to him.

But if David found out, the possibilities were endless to what would happen. David could even decide to eliminate him from the game.

Suddenly, David's eyes widened. "Miguel, what the hell is that?"

Outside the attic window, what appeared to be a boxcar connected to a cable was slowly moving its way through the air. It had the appearance of a floating tram, but it was too stationary and still to be floating. Miguel had only seen it once before, and that was when he had traveled to Brazil for a family vacation.

"It's a sky tram", Miguel concluded. "It's like a monorail in the sky that tourists use to sightsee".

David stared. "Why is there one on this island?"

"Well, people did live here before the program started. Maybe Cuna Cielo is a tourist attraction or something".

Almost in an instant, an idea hit Miguel. Although it was sketchy, and although it was impractical, it was enough to reboot any lost confidence he had as the leader of his group.

It was an escape plan.

"If we rig one of the trams with enough explosives", Miguel began, his mind churning like a machine "We can start it and send it around the island until it reaches above the school. Once it's hovering about the school, we stop the brakes from the control room and cut the cables. The tram will fall down and blow up the school. All the collars will disable, and once that happens, nobody's stuck here anymore. We can swim away".

"To where?"

"We're off the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, right?" Miguel continued. "We'll just swim until we get to a port town near the coast. We'll border hop, get back to America, and-

"Live the rest of out lives as fugitives from the law", David sighed. "Why don't we just stay in Mexico? At least _they_ don't send their students off to die on fucking islands".

"Whatever. What we'll do after we get off the island doesn't matter now. But the tram idea will work. All we need to do is plan it out and find where the tram starts".

David stared, mesmerized by Miguel's idea. "If you could think all of this up, why were you almost held back last year?"

Instead of answering, Miguel merely faced out the window and pretended he hadn't heard David. The reason he had nearly failed school was simple; a tough and hardened gangster did not succeed in school. If he actually tried in school, David and Enrique would have known the truth. Either that, or Miguel was simply paranoid about his secret. Maybe it was the second.

"So, we just have to find where the tram starts", Miguel explained. "We find the control room, find enough things that would cause an explosion, start the tram, and after that, it's easy. We get off the island".

David nodded, a bright smile stretching across his face_. "_After that_, finalidad de juego_!"

And even as terrified as they were, Miguel Chavez (Boy #3) found himself smiling back. The words of David Rodriguez (Boy #14) translated into, "game over".

* * *

"It's open!"

Prudence Mercedes (Girl #8) banged her shoulder into the door again, swinging it open as the hinges made an unpleasant clinking sound. Mitch Kelley (Boy #10) stumbled as it swung open, struggling not to think of the horrible sounds that they had all heard.

Gunshots.

After hearing the barrage of bullets that had echoed through the barn, Mitch had feared the worst. He pictured Darren entering the barn with his pistol, firing wildly and nailing every single girl in the kitchen. Or even worse, after murdering the girls, Darren turned to Adam, who was sitting just outside the door, and finished him off as well.

Despite what had happened, Mitch decided that he couldn't admit that Adam was no longer his friend. No matter what, he had been the only person he had been willing to trust in the entire competition; relationships like that couldn't simply die out in an instant. A human life, however, could be gone in even less of an instant.

And that was what had terrified Mitch as he and the others had been struggling to break open the locked door.

Behind him, as the door flew open, Sadie Mercedes (Girl #9), Terry Klingerman (Girl #6), Luke Graystone (Boy #5), and J.C Brooke (Girl #1) stared inwardly, prepared for the worst. J.C, however, seemed to look indifferent about the entire situation; it was like she cared less about the forty-one corpses that were going to appear on the island in three days. He pictured J.C when she left the running for the program, not even caring about her own death.

"Do you guys see anything?" Luke asked.

Mitch glanced around quickly. The kitchen door was slightly creaked open, and the smell of freshly baked cake was hanging in the air. However, the smell wasn't the only thing that was hanging in the air.

"Holy_ shit_!"

Sadie was the first to see it. Almost instantly, she wrenched over and vomited, emptying her frail anorexic stomach of sawdusty bread rolls. Mitch followed her gaze, and when he saw it, he struggled too not to vomit as well.

Perry Rumbaugh (Girl #5) hung from the barn rafters with a short cord hanging from her neck. Her eyes were wide like dinner plates, and her tan and bronzed face, always serious-looking, had become inflamed and red.

"She hung herself!" Terry shrieked, almost like a kindergarten statement. "I can't believe it! Perry _hung_ herself!"

However, Mitch couldn't reply. His eyes had turned to another corpse that was lying limply in the corner. The neck of June Harrison (Girl #4) was swollen and purple, and broken capillaries of blood were leaking out of her mouth like a human fire hydrant.

"What a stupid bitch", J.C sighed. "She didn't even finish cooking dinner before she decided to kill herself on us. What are we going to do for food later on?"

Suddenly, Terry's eyes lit up in rage. "Shut up, _J.C_!'

The thick, satisfying smack of Terry slapping J.C echoed through the entire barn, almost as deafening and loud as the gunshot. J.C, the former tough girl of Spanish Rivers, sniffled softly before turning away in a huff.

"Leana", Mitch said, suddenly realizing she was absent. "Where's Leana Devora?"

In a moment, his question was answered. Craning his neck, his eyes widened as he saw her rumpled body lying against the cabinet through the doorway to the kitchen. The entire room, for some bizarre reason, was full of balloons. It was horrible; almost like the government throwing at a festival in honor of their death.

"I'm so _scared_", Mitch whispered, not even knowing he was talking. "Jesus Christ, I just want to go home…"

"There's nothing to be scared of, Mitch", Prudence sighed, biting her lip. "There's nobody in here".

Luke stared. "Prudence? I'm sorry to correct you, but you have to be an idiot if you think somebody didn't murder them. Their bodies are everywhere!"

Terry, apparently catching on, nodded bitterly. "Prudence is right. They did this to themselves. They were the murderers".

After that, everybody was quiet, aside from J.C swearing angrily under her breath as she massaged her cheek. It wasn't just a moment of silence for Perry and her friends, but it was a moment of silence for all of them. Mitch thought of Kevin Hashburg, being rittled with bullets, and Risa Ridgeway, her smile like a maniac as she lunged toward him.

"This isn't fair", Mitch said. "It's _horrible_! _The government can't do this to people_!"

"This is the sixty-third program, Mitch", Luke said. "I'm pretty sure they don't give a shit about their morals".

"I don't care, Luke! What did Perry do to anyone? _Nobody _deserves this; not even Darren or you, or anybody else!"

"It's just like I said before Mitch", Sadie sighed. 'Nobody wins".

And at that moment, Mitch's mind returned to the argument they had all had in the stables. One of the most vocal participants in that argument was now missing.

"Where's Adam? Is he dead!"

Terry shrugged. "His body isn't anywhere here. He must have ran outside with Nathan once the bullets started firing".

"Bastard", Luke spat.

Once again, Adam had abandoned the scene of the crime, just like he had abandoned Mitch like a stray dog. Adam had left him out to die, refusing to trust or be trusted. He was already a victim of the game, and he didn't even know it yet. As much as Mitch refused to admit it, Boy #15 was due for an announcement.

"Best friends, Terry", Mitch said, not even sure what he was saying. "They were best friends".

And him and Adam had been best friends, too.

* * *

**Eliminated**

**(Girl #4) Harrison, June**

**(Girl #2) Devora, Leana**

**(Girl #15) Rumbaugh, Perry**

* * *

**32 Students Remaining**

* * *

**I thought it was funny when Terry, who was always the peaceful one who hated violence, smacked J.C across the face. I like J.C; she's a fun character to write, so I wouldn't count on her leaving any time soon.**

**Just to help me even the competitors out and make everyone equal, I was wondering if you could do something for me after reading this chapter. Pick the one character that you think will die next and tell them in a review. Since every single one has been introduced, so you know most of their personalities. Nathan Carpenter seems quiet for now, but you'll see later that he's actually a much deeper character.**

**Oh, if you don't remember Rory, he was a member of Zane's group before Skylar and Jesse died. He didn't talk much.**

* * *


	16. Day 1: Hour 14: 32 Students Remaining

At 3:47 PM, with the blaring sun hanging over the island, Demi Marigold (Girl #7) glanced out across the balcony of the lighthouse.

In the far distance, even with her poor eyesight from her broken glasses, the sunset was promising imagined her standing on top of the lighthouse, glancing out at the horizon, almost as a piece of art. If only somebody was here to paint it.

After her encounter with Lea Passington (Girl #11) in the library, Demi had aimlessly wandered around the island, unsure of where to go or who to trust. Winston's name had repeated in her mind many times, but even though it pained her, she realized she wasn't even sure if she could trust him now. Demi valued good-natured people; now that the good-natured were staring to die and kill, she was unsure of what to believe.

Squinting out into the horizon, hardly seeing it with her broken glasses, Demi saw a glimpse of one of the army ships, "set to kill anybody escaping by sea". There were faint shadows of other islands in the distance, but all of them were unpopulated; nobody even knew where Cuna Cielo was.

Sighing inwardly, Demi grasped the cold railing and walked back through the door of the lighthouse. After wandering around for hours, Demi had remembered her map and checked it; she had chosen a sector basically bare of forbidden zones that also contained a lighthouse. It would be the perfect hiding spot.

"_Good people_", Demi thought.

But it wasn't true. Lea had been a good person before the program, but good people didn't chase their classmates through libraries with golf clubs. For all she knew, Lea could have woken up by now, and she could be searching the entire island for revenge. She had never considered Lea so violent; she had always sat alone at lunch, quietly reading and minding her own business. She had simply seemed to Demi like a loner who was proud to be the way she was.

"Some people are just like that", Winston had said once. "Just leave them alone".

That was what Demi had loved about her relationship with Winston. Anything she didn't understand, she would know, and vice versa. Together, they knew their own answers about life's problems. She fondly remembered their dates, which hadn't been particularly impressive. However, a picnic in the woods or a walk through town had so much more meaning when Winston was around.

And now, there was no other way they would ever be together again.

Squinting through the doorway of the lighthouse, Demi made out something bulky and shaped like an inflated gravestone; the hull of the lighthouse where the flame was ignited. When the residents had fled Cuna Cielo, they had put out the flame, leaving Demi alone in the cold.

Sniffling as she walked down the spiraling steps of the lighthouse, Demi clutched the railing tightly as she walked into the circular kitchen on the bottom floor. She was already one of the shortest girls in the grade, and the fact that she was now nearly blind now did not help the situation.

"Why didn't mom just buy _contacts_?" Demi moaned outloud.

Quietly, Demi moved her hands out in front of her, making out the blurry peripherals of wooden chairs. A refrigerator and a counter, curved against the circular wall, were standing in the corner. The large wooden table in the middle of the room was also circular, almost making the room seem like a spinning funhouse.

And a boy was sitting on top of it.

"Oh my _god_!"

* * *

Jude Mercedes (Boy #11) stared at Demi's squinting eyes as he lay on the wooden kitchen table. Demi's face instantly lit up in shock, causing her to squeal like a mouse and step backwards.

"Who are you? You better tell me who _you_ are!"

Jude's eyes narrowed. "Or what?'

"I'll…_I'll…I'll kill you_!"

"You're threatening me, Demi. You're no different than Mae".

She was squinting and her eyes seemed out-of-focus, almost like she was unsure of where Jude was, or if she was honestly going to kill him. In fact, she didn't even seem sure that Jude was the one who was there; he could have been anybody in her eyes, and she wouldn't know until she got a name.

And this was what gave Jude an idea.

"Mae Yamamoto?" Demi Marigold (Girl #7) shrieked. "What about her? _What's going on_! _Who are you_?"

Jude struggled not to smirk as he answered in a gruff voice. "Winston Van Buren".

"W-W-W-Winston? Is it really you?"

She seemed uncertain and resembled a mouse more than ever now. After leaving the cabin where he had discovered the body of Risa Ridgeway (Girl #14), Jude had watched Demi from the balcony of the lighthouse, staring out at the horizon with her dazed and squinted eyes. She had angered him. In fact, her mouse-like face annoyed him so much that he decided to use her as the lab-rat she really was.

Demi was going to be a test.

His classmates were scared of him and didn't trust him at all. This was simply a test to see if this was true.

"What's wrong with your voice?" Demi said skeptically.

"My throat's messed up", Jude said, keeping his voice baritone. "I think I may have gotten a cold from running around the island".

For a second, Jude prepared to spring up from the table and abandon the lighthouse, confident that his voice hadn't been able to pass as Winston's. Two factors would have to come into key: Demi's eyesight and her devotion to her boyfriend. He calculated her face, waiting for something to happen.

Suddenly, Demi's face lit up in delight.

"_Oh, Winston_! Do you want some water? I can't believe it! I mean, out of all people to come in here-

"I know. I'm surprised, too".

Normally, Demi would have considered this odd, but Jude knew she was too overwhelmed with finally finding, "Winston", to care. She felt her way down the countertop, moving her hand through the air as she searched for the faucet of the sink.

"I have so much to tell you!" Demi squealed in an excited voice. "There's so much we need to talk about! I don't even know where to start! In the library, I-

"Demi, can I ask you something?"

Demi stared in the opposite direction, smiling with her dazed and squinted eyes. "Whatever you want!"

"You know how important it is to trust other people in this game? What would you do if I wasn't Winston? What if I was someone else? Even if you were scared of them, would you still take the chance and trust them?"

Demi stared with her squinted and dazed eyes. "Huh? Winston?"

"We're all just going to die anyway, and in the end, none of us want to die. No matter how horrible a person is, it's important to trust them. If you trust them, it will make them seem safer. Anyone feels that way".

"Winston, what are you talking about? You don't sound like yourself…"

"Whatever", Jude sighed. "Let's not talk about it right now. I found Risa's body. Somebody definitely killed her; there's a bullet wound across her face".

Demi nodded bitterly. "Lea Passington is playing the game".

'Lea?"

"Yeah. I don't get it, either. She always struck me as the bookworm type. She doesn't have any reason to do anything".

The fact that this timid girl had threatened him repeated in his mind like clockwork. If somebody let themselves become sucked into the paranoia of the game, they had no purpose anymore; they were a complete idiot and idiots simply had to be disposed of. There were too many bad memories in his class, and all that needed to remain of those memories when the game was over were him and his sisters.

His classmates had all judged him. He had simply sat there alone in his seat, minding his own buisness, and they had judged him because of his different ideas and beliefs. Sadie and Prudence had been judged, too; his entire family name had been mocked by Spanish Rivers High. When the bell rung at school, Jude would never be socializing. He would simply sit in his seat and watch his classmates, learning about their lives. Chris fidgeting with his fingers when he was taking a quiz showed how he was frightened of failure, particularly when he was playing football. The way J.C's eyes darted to a person when they entered in a room showed her insecurity, wondering if that person was hiding something.

_Stupid, stupid people._

The thought consumed him, causing him to hate his classmates, especially Demi, more than he ever had in his life. He pictured them all in a room, mumbling and walking into eachother like a circus.

And Demi had obviously threatened him. Now, it was time to dispose of her like he had always wanted to.

"Do you want to go look at the view, Demi?"

"View?"

"We'll climb to the top of the lighthouse and look outside. Just like we always do; we'll talk about the sunset".

From the moment he started talking, he knew he had sized Demi up perfectly. She obviously didn't want anything more than to travel to the horizon with her beloved Winston. Jude had seen the lovers talk to eachother about the clouds and the sunset.

Demi smiled. "I'm really glad you're here, Winston".

"So am I".

Jude gripped her hand warmly, thanking nature for giving him hands nearly as large and bulky as Winston's. Demi's squinted eyes narrowed away, still not able to make out anything more than an inch away from her. They walked up the rickety railing slowly as Demi clutched him for support.

"I don't understand people", Demi sighed. "I always thought our class was so nice.."

"Bright light casts dark shadows", Jude replied.

"You're acting really weird, Winston. Are you sure you're okay? You may have gotten more than a sore throat from running around. Maybe I should try to find some medicine".

"It's fine, Demi".

They entered the top of the stairs and peered out over the balcony at the horizon. In the far distance, a swirling gray storm cloud made its way toward the island, sizing itself up to become the first downfall of rain in the competition. The sunlight casted itself over the water, lighting itself up before Jude's eyes.

"It's beautiful", Demi mused.

Jude nodded. "Beautiful".

Demi's squinted eyes searched around before finally locking on his. She smiled innocently, and in Jude's opinion, idiotically. Despite being small and mouse-like, Demi's face wasn't necessarily bad looking. Past her square-rimmed glasses, she had a mature and intellectual face that just hadn't reached her young expression yet.

And with that, Demi Marigold (Girl #7) swung her lips over and kissed Jude Mercedes (Boy #11). Her tongue slipped in passionately, nearly causing Jude to gag. However, he didn't; he knew one false move would ruin the entire plan. If he pushed Demi hard enough, she would topple over the railing headfirst.

In almost an instant, Demi's tongue sucked out of Winston's mouth like a snake. Alarmed, she stepped back, clutching her hands against the railing.

"You're not Winston!"

"You're right", he said emotionlessly. "I'm Jude".

Demi shrieked and swung out her short and stubby leg. Her heels clicked his kneecap painfully, but it was only a minor bruise. He surveyed Demi's face, still calculating her like an equation.

"You rely on Winston because you don't have any ideas of your own. Grow up and stop acting like a damsel in distress under your strong boyfriend".

Squeaking like a mouse, Demi dashed backwards, flailing her hands as she struggled to reach out for the railings and doorway back into the lighthouse. She fell instantly, but that didn't seem to stop her at all. In a minute, she had scurried up from the balcony and had crawled into the doorway, or in her case, her mousehole.

Jude didn't care. He was patient.

Hardly blinking, he massaged his neatly combed red hair and walked through the doorway onto the spiraling staircase of the lighthouse. The moment he saw her, the first thing that he noticed was that her bag, laying on the kitchen table, was unzipped and a heavy-looking machine gun was clutched in her trembling and small hands.

"Jude?' she shrieked, staring at the wall. "W-W-W-W-where are you?"

"You can't kill anyone, Demi", Jude noted. "You see so much of the best in people that you would never be able to harm a fly".

"Shut up! You lied to me!_ You're horrible! You're-_

Jude clutched the railing at the top of the staircase, tightening his grip. "A real person. Grow up and learn that life isn't a sitcom. Nobody is perfect. Especially you".

"_Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!"_

Demi fired wildly at the wall, squinting her eyes as she struggled to make out where Jude was. The bullets ricocheted with cracking light, each punctured with the sound of a slicing melon as her squinted eyes suddenly became wide for the first time since she has lost her glasses. By the first second, Jude knew exactly what had happened.

Demi had fired an entire cartridge of bullets at the wall and every single one had ricocheted back at her.

She howled in pain, falling to the floor as she clutched her red and wet stomach. The fabric of her sweater changed like magic, instantly becoming saggy and purple as the blood from her bullet wounds soaked through it. Once again, Jude had harmed one of his classmates without even touching them. Demi squealed, balling up like an infant as she rolled on her stomach

Jude shook his head. "_Tsk…Tsk_…"

Demi was whimpering on the ground of the lighthouse kitchen. The bullets were deep, but none of them had seemed to have punctured any of her vital stomach organs after ricocheting off the wall. Still, however, her eyes were squinting and dazed like she had just walked out of a movie theater.

"You're an idiot, Demi", Jude said quietly.

He kicked his pearl white sneakers hard into her ribs, causing her to roll over and howl out in pain. The machine gun she had loosely been holding was now on her stomach, nearly crushing her frail and tiny body. Now, close to death at any minute, Demi seemed even smaller than a mouse; _an ant? _Jude hated ants.

"Stay here until someone finds you and helps you", Jude sighed. "Or hopefully kills you. You're not worth my time, Demi. Neither was Mae, actually".

Leaving Demi sobbing, nearly dead, and bullet-ridden on the ground, Jude struggled to get the taste of her kiss out of his mouth as he walked out.

* * *

"I can take the tape off your mouth, Zane", Preston Tracy (Boy #18) said uneasily. "But I can't untie you. And I'll only be able to keep it off until Eddie and Chris come back with the firewood".

Zane Barrens (Boy #1), his sealed mouth a pool of vomit and blood, nodded meekly as Preston frail fingers gripped the loose end of the tape. With the mild pain of the duct tape tearing off the hair across his lips, Zane's mouth wretched open, sputtering out the blood and vomit that had been nearly clogged down his throat. His front teeth had been knocked out, but his appearance wasn't important right. With more rage than he had ever felt in his life, he gritted his teeth at Preston.

"You are a complete _pussy_!"

"Huh?"

"If you want to save me so badly, kill them! I don't care how you do it, Preston! Please, just kill them both before anything else happens!"

Preston stared. "Chris and Eddie, you mean?"

"Who else you stupid shit? Kill them! Don't you get it? They're insane! They're violent bullies! They take pleasure out of doing this! They're-

"My friends", Preston finished curtly.

For a second, Zane was too shocked to speak. He could only gawk and stare at Preston Tracy like he was some type of majestic animal. Along with being one of the shortest boys in their grade, Preston was extremely average-looking; he had a curved and slender face, cleanly cut black hair, and a plastered on smile with braces. It was only suiting for somebody like him to wear a costume and pretend to be a life-size animal.

"I didn't hear you right. Did you seriously just say that they're your _friends_?"

"They're the only people I know that ever accepted me, Zane. Maybe not friends, but something else. Even if they bullied me and beat me and did everything else in the world, I can't kill them!"

"Well, knock them unconscious! Let me go!"

"But I'm scared!"

Zane rolled his eyes, seeing this was getting absolutely nowhere. Preston was a coward with no back-bone at all, and he was simply making up excuses for being too scared to fight for his own right.

"You shot Chris before, though! You probally could have really hurt him!"

"Well, that was different. They almost killed you!"

"They could kill me at any second! That time wasn't different from the moment they tied me up, and you know it!"

Preston stared with defeated puppy-dog eyes. "Well, I'm scared, okay? I'll say it again! I can't do it!"

"Real friends don't hurt you!"

Suddenly, the childish mascot face of Preston formed into an unpleasant sneer, almost like an oinking pig. His braces flashed light in his mouth, blinding Zane's tired and tear-stained eyes.

"Don't give any of that to me, Zane. You treat your friends like complete crap. You bullied Skylar, and Jesse, and even J.C! And you're always bragging that she's your girlfriend!"

"First of all", Zane snapped. "Who doesn't yell at J.C? Second of all, J.C is none of your buisness. Along with that, my friends don't threaten to kill me and nearly knock me unconscious, so I'm fine!"

"Oh, so it's okay to bully people as long as they won't fight back?"

After that, Zane was utterly silent. Preston had hit a soft spot and he had nothing to say in defense. Jesse and Skylar's words earlier that day, before they had departed the competition and this world, echoed through his mind like ghosts speaking. _"I'm tired of you, Zane…" "Everyone you bully just has something you wish you had!"_

"Preston, why does everyone judge me?"

"Because you judge them first, Zane. It's not hard to understand".

"Do you think J.C is alive?"

Preston shrugged. "She wasn't in the announcement, so she has a good sporting chance. She's pretty athletic, right?"

In the cluster of bushes beside the bog, the sound of muffled talking punctured by a cold laugh hung in the humid air. The two monsters that had tortured Zane mindlessly were now returning.

"I have to put the tape back on now, Zane", Preston said.

"Save me!" Zane hissed.

"No! They'll _hurt_ me! Just try not to piss them off too much".

Zane groaned as the duct tape quickly stretched back across his lips, muffling his voice completely. Obviously, the mascot's mind wasn't going to be changed any time soon.

* * *

"Shit, it's going to rain".

Terry Klingerman (Girl #6) spoke these words as she glanced up at the sky. The once sunny and tropical light over Cuna Cielo had vanished, and the air felt moist and humid. The sky had become gray and cloudless, and any minute, all three of them knew a downpour of rain would come pummeling down on their heads.

Behind her, Luke Graystone (Boy #5) and Mitch Kelley (Boy #10) walked silently, their heads bowed down at the ground and hiding their collars from the storm clouds. In the back of his mind, Mitch remembered being at the bus time on a misty and rainy day and watching his classmates materialize from the fog like ghostly shadows as they walked up? Was that what they looked like now?

After the massacre at the barn, leaving all three of the girls dead, Prudence Mercedes (Girl #8) had gone berserk. Threatening them all with the blunt end of her rake and complaining that they were all, "weighing her down", she had chased them out of the barn in merely a moment with her sister standing in confusion behind her. J.C Brooke (Girl #1) had fled in the opposite direction from them, so there was no point in trying to find her. In the end, Mitch was resentful of the fact that Prudence was unfortunately right; they were all must better off without eachother.

"But were thy burdened with the coming storm", Mitch found himself saying suddenly. "Thine themself may nor speak nor mourn".

Terry looked somewhat impressed. "Where'd you hear that?"

"Mrs.Kregeuo's literature class. Shakespeare or something. I probally messed it up".

"Screw Shakespeare!"

The two of them spun around to face Luke. Ever since leaving the barn, he had sported an angry and frustrated look on his face. It didn't occur to Mitch exactly who or what he was angry at, but it didn't matter; he hated Luke more than Luke could hate anything in the world, no matter what Terry thought.

"I hate Shakespeare!" Luke ranted frantically. "I hate the storm! I hate Mrs.Kregeuo! I hate you both so much! You don't think I'll tell Burke I hate him? Get Burke out here and I'll say it right to his face!"

"Luke, be quiet. They-

"I don't care what, "_they_" think, Terry! Get Burke out here now!"

His face was shaking and frantic, and for just a second, it seemed like the symptoms of somebody about to have a nervous breakdown. In fact, for just a second, Mitch thought he heard a thundering crackle in the air; the sound of Luke's mind falling apart. But in the end, it was just the storm approaching.

"I want to spit in Burke's face! I want to _piss_ on it! God, I just want to go home!"

Mitch shook his head. "Luke, why are you even here?"

Suddenly, any trace of insanity vanished from Luke's face like it had never been there. "Huh?"

"You keep complaining that you'd rather be anywhere else, but in the meantime, you signed up to go here. You actually signed up to kill forty-one of your classmates for god's sake! I don't get you".

"What makes you think I wanted to kill, Mitch?" Luke retorted. "What if I wanted to do just the opposite?"

And at that second, there was a sudden quiet like the silencer of a gun had gone off. Mitch and Terry stood awestruck, waiting for Luke to say something else. However, he didn't. He merely stood there with his ponytail beachboy haircut. He reminded Mitch of the complicated characters he had been so pitiful at analyzing on literature tests.

"I don't get you, Luke", Mitch sighed.

"I do", Terry said suddenly. "Luke didn't come to here to let people die. He came here to die with them".

"Terry's right, Mitch. I signed up for suicide".

_Suicide. _It was almost a foreign concept to Mitch, and now, he realized now that both of his teammates had attempted it at one point in their lives. He felt like an outcast. It was a bizarre feeling, and he knew it was nothing to feel left out about, but for some reason, he pitied himself. It made him feel like Luke and Terry were stronger people.

"I told you before", Luke said bitterly. "There's that little can in the grocery store to put your name and school in for the program. I remember walking through the parking lot with the slip in my hand, wondering if anyone would see me. I crossed the checkout counter to the program sign-up can laying there, and saw that nobody else's name was in there. I guess I was the only one stupid or brave enough to do something like that. I dropped it in, and I left".

"But why?" said Mitch. 'Why would you do sign up? People just don't kill themselves because the sun rises in the morning".

"But they kill themselves because the sun sets", Luke continued. "I'm tired of you, Mitch. I'm tired of the way you act like a loner, when in the meantime, you're just scared of what other people think of you. You know nothing about what being a loner is!".

"I never said-

"You know how you think everyone in the school hates you, right? It's not like that at all! In all the time I've been at your school, nobody's said a word about you behind your back! You just _hate_ yourself!"

Luke was breathing hard, and for just a second, Mitch forgot that all three of them had been standing alone in the clearing for nearly five minutes. He felt like saying something back, but the truth was, there was nothing to say about Luke. He didn't know anything about the ponytailed boy other than that he confused him.

"Luke", Terry butted in. "If you have something you want to say, tell us now. We'll take it to the grave".

Luke shrugged. "I guess you will".

If it was supposed to be a joke, Mitch didn't find it funny. Swishing his blonde ponytail backwards, Luke rolled his eyes.

"Before I moved to Spanish Rivers, I lived on an island around the Florida Keys. There were a total of sixty-two people living there, and the name of the island was Spanish. It sort of translated into, "heaven's cradle".

Terry nodded, finally understanding. "Cuna Cielo".

Mitch remembered what Luke had said back when they were in the cabin where the Risa incident had taken place. He had called Cuna Cielo his, "home". Had he actually lived on the island?

"It was quiet, it was small, and to top it all off, I was the only kid on the island. But nothing mattered. I was happy, and that was all that mattered. I didn't have a television, I didn't have a radio, and I never had a haircut in my life, but still, I couldn't have been happier to be alive".

"What happened?"

"Nothing happened. It's what didn't happen. I came home one day from fishing at the dock, and I saw a big boat with sirens in the harbor next to my house. When I ran to it, I saw my dad handcuffed and being loaded into the boat. My mom was crying when the police officer asked her questions, and all of these men with uniforms were going into my house and taking out these plastic bags with white powder. I didn't understand, but eventually, I understood". Luke bit his lip. "My dad was harboring cocaine in our beach house. My mom left him two years later, and after that, there was the one thing that didn't happen. I wanted to stay on Cuna Cielo. Instead, we packed up our stuff and moved to Spanish Rivers".

By now, Mitch could clearly see that Luke was crying. A lone tear dripped down his face, catching on the hook of his shark-tooth necklace.

'The moment I get there, I get bullied for being an outsider to you and your classmates. Look at Luke Graystone! He never talks! Look at Luke! He wears his hair like a faggot surfer! The more I hated you all, the more I decided I couldn't take it anymore. I just wanted to go back to Cuna Cielo or die. So, after not being able to take it anymore, I decided my life had to end. I was to much of a pussy to do it myself, so I did the quickest way of suicide possible".

"The program", Mitch concluded.

Luke nodded. "And when I put the form into the sign-up can, they asked what my one wish would be if I ever won the program. I said, "Go back to Cuna Cielo". Around then, they were choosing the location of the next program. Imagine their twisted minds when they thought up this joke. Look at this _kid_! He wants to go to his hometown! Let's send him there and make him kill every single one of his classmates! Funny as hell, right? Unfortunately, once I signed up, they shipped my class out with me, too. I didn't know that, and before you all jump on me again, I'm sorry! Now, Mitch, if you ever put up this loner shit to my face again, I'll…_I'll…_

Luke's peaceful face, usually calm and expressionless, was now red and inflamed like a wild animal. His face was a mess of tears and snot, making him look like a four-year old who hadn't gotten what he wanted for Christmas.

"But why haven't you just died already?" Mitch asked, bewildered. "You signed up to kill yourself, right?"

"Death is funny when it stares you in the face, huh? Well, the moment I left the school, I realized I was a coward. In fact, I'm more than a coward. I'm a hypocrite. I couldn't let anyone kill me if I tried. So I decided I had to win; that's why I tried to steal your taser, Mitch".

"So that's how you knew where that cabin was", Terry noted. "You used to live here".

Finally, the complicated character of Luke Graystone was being unmasked, and now, on an exam, Mitch was relatively sure he would have the chance of passing. Luke was an angry person who had taken out his own anger on himself by signing up for the program. By the time he got there, and realized it wasn't such a swell idea, it was too late.

"I sort of expected you all to slit my throat", Luke sighed.

"Adam said you were the kind of a person to flip out and kill everyone", Mitch remembered outloud.. "He said the same thing about Lea Passington".

Luke rolled his eyes, wiping his tears. "Well, Adam is a jackass. So are both of you, actually. But what really sucks is the truth. All three of us are going to die. You can say we'll get off the island, but you know that's not the kind of a thing that happens to people like us. It's what happens to the other guy".

"But anyone can be the other guy", Terry sad, almost trying to boost the mood of the group. "We all have a fighting chance".

"So did Mae. So did Skylar and Jesse. So did Perry! They all had a fighting chance! Look what happened to all of them!"

Luke whimpered, shaking like a frightened puppy. Then, staring down at his shark tooth necklace. He did the strangest thing; he brought it up to his lips and kissed it softly like a luck charm.

"Sometime during this competition, I'm sitting down and dieing".

"If you do", Terry retorted. "You give in to the government".

"Well, I give in to the government. How about that?"

Shaking with rage, Mitch glared angrily at the swaying shark tooth necklace on Luke's neck. He had a horrible urge to rip it off and shatter Luke's, "good luck", charm, but he knew it would only worsen the situation.

"For the boys", Luke said in a deep voice. "We have Mitch Kelley (Boy #10). Now it's time for the Danger Zones".

"Shut_ up_!

And with that, the distant rumbling of thunder echoed in the distance. The storm clouds swirled above the two of them, with Terry as a bystander on the side.

"Let's go guys", Terry said hurriedly. "We might be heading into a Danger Zone. We'll have to hurry up the hill!"

Having no other choice, Mitch tightened his fist as Luke sneered at him, but he shrugged his anger away and followed Terry. However, as he felt the air grow wetter and more humid than ever, he craned his neck around and stared at Luke again.

He was kissing his necklace again. But more importantly, he was crying.

* * *

Mare Ewing (Girl #3) glanced at the cloudy sky as she lay against the tree trunk. It was humid and wet, causing wind to spray through her locks of green hair, and any minute, she knew the entire island of Cuna Cielo would be drenched in rain.

"It's going to rain".

Winston Van Buren (Boy #19)) stared blankly as he lay against the tree. "What are you? A hawk?"

"Huh?"

"Hawks can tell when a storm is coming, Mare. They feel it ruffling in their feathers".

Mare smiled sarcastically. "That's really fascinating. Is that one of the things that you and your girlfriend were so worked up on talking about?"

Winston blushed slightly, turning away from Mare. Obviously, Demi was the one who _had _told him this fact about hawks. She was being slightly rude to Winston, almost cruel, but it didn't matter; even though Winston's physique was muscled and big, he was a frightened puppy on the inside. Mare was simply toughening him up for the competition.

_Mare._

She hated her name. It almost sounded like the name of a horse. This only made her angrier, because she hated horses more than anything. They were disgusting animals who were brainless and carried people around, never doing anything to fight back. The more she thought about it, her view on horses was almost exactly like her view of herself.

In school, Mare's kleptomania, her obsession with stealing, had benefited her more than she could ever imagine. Whenever her classmates needed anything, they all knew that whatever it was, and if they paid the right price, that girl with the green and spiky hair would be able to steal it for her. People had taken advantage of her, using her exactly like a horse, but in the end, Mare didn't see anything wrong with what she did.

Stealing was borrowing. When people died, they lost all of their possessions. In her eyes, the idea of anything being, "mine", was a myth.

Checking her watch as she lay against the tree trunk, Mare cringed as her other hand massaged her leg where she had been shot in the classroom. Even though she hadn't looked at the skin under awhile for quite a while, she knew for a fact that it was swollen black and obviously infected. The dark patch on her jeans told her they were soaked with blood.

The time on her watch said 3:35.

"Tell me more about hawks, Winston", Mare sighed.

"I don't really know anything else, Mare. They're birds, they feel storms, they're almost endangered, but that's all I know about them".

"Well, let's talk about something else. Anything but the fact that our time is ticking away".

Winston raised his eyebrow. "Are you scared, Mare?"

It annoyed her. Winston, who was a year older than her and muscled like a linebacker, had always seemed like the frightened one under her. It had given her a strange form of dominance, almost like how a lion tamer probally felt. Now, he was questioning her about her own priorities.

She rolled her eyes. "Bite me".

"I was just asking. For all the time we've spent together, the one thing you haven't talked at all about is the program. We talked about Demi, we talked about you stealing, but in the end, we didn't talk about why we're here. You're scared of dieing, aren't you?"

"Leave me alone!"

"All you want to do is talk", Winston continued, not braking his gaze on her. "You just want to talk, and not think about when this is going to be over. We need a plan, Mare. You don't have any other plan of what to do but ignoring the fact we're all going to die! Demi would _have_ an idea!"

"Demi is _dead _for all we know!" Mare roared. "She could be laying with ten bullets in her body".

For a second, Mare was sure Winston was going to say something again. However, whatever he had been contemplating seemed to have gotten stuck halfway up his throat, causing his Adam's apple to bob like a bullfrog's. He stared down at the ground, confused and hurt.

"S-S-S-Sorry, Winston. I didn't mean that".

"Neither did I. The more I think about it, the more I don't want to talk about Demi. It just puts more scenarios in my head. What else do you want to talk about?"

Mare smirked. "Anything besides hawks, right?"

The first raindrop of the competition trickled down onto Mare's head, drizzling through her knots and bangs of green spikes. Within seconds, three more came splashing down, and in a minute, there was a downpour of rain. For a second, she contemplated moving closer to Winston against the tree for warmth. But that wasn't her style; she wasn't a damsel in distress.

"I wish I could smoke", she sighed. "But the rain would put it out".

"Do you still have those files?" Winston said suddenly.

She did. Even though they were beginning to be drenched with the rain leaking through the fabric of her backpack, they were mostly legible. Glad that they had found another way to waste their time, she dug through her backpack before pulling the bulky packet out.

"I never liked looking at people's secrets", Winston began. "But if we don't do it now…

Needing to ease her guilt, Mare nodded in agreement. "Nobody will ever know that they existed".

Not wasting a second, Mare flipped open to a random page and found herself peering at a black-and-white picture of Sadie Mercedes (Girl #9). The picture was from nearly a year ago, but still, her anorexic face was pale and ghost-like. Every bit of information about this poor girl was in their hands.

"I don't get it", Winston blurted out. "Where the hell does the government get their hands on this kind of stuff?" He pointed his finger at the paper. "Look! It even has the electives she was planning on taking! Cooking and study hall".

"I think the school just gave it to them", she sighed. "When the government wants forty-two kids shipped out to an island, they'll get them out there in a second".

"Cowards".

"Tell me about it".

* * *

J.C Brooke (Girl #1) sniffled softly as her legs hung over the mossy cliff. Several feet away, the cold and rotting bodies of two former friends lay with sleeping pills scattered out around them. However, J.C didn't dare to go anywhere near them. Several feet away where Jesse and Skylar lay, the entire area had become a Danger Zone. The rain trickled down her face, and nobody passing by would be able to realize that she was crying.

She had tried to become part of their group.

No matter where she was or what she did, everybody hated her. They had all yelled at her, and she had tried so hard to be nice to all of them. Why did she always have to be such a ruthless bully to everyone she knew? Mitch hated her, Terry hated her, Prudence hated her, and before she died, Perry probally even hated her.

She had only been trying to help the group. After all, when she had noted that Perry hadn't cooked anything before she died, she hadn't been trying to insult her memory. She had simply been thinking ahead for the benefit of the group and was wondering what they were going to do for dinner. Unfortunately though, her words had come out wrong. Her words always came out wrong.

"_When my name comes on an announcement_", she thought bitterly. "_Nobody will care_…"

She imagined what all of her classmates gossiped about her in the hallway? J.C Brooke? Oh, her. She's good to look at, _but other than that…_

In the end, her looks were all she had going for her. Even though she dyed her hair red when it was naturally dirty blonde, she had an angelic face and sharp blue eyes that brought out her make-up. She was pretty and mean. That was all everyone knew about her.

She hadn't always been a selfish brat. She remembered being a Girl Scout when she was little and sharing the leftover cookies with her friends, when she had actually had friends to pass out cookies too. In the end, she truly had no friends. She knew in her mind that Skylar and Jesse had probally despised her before Zane had killed them both.

Turning around, she glanced over at Skylar and Jesse's bodies being soaked in the rain. Jesse's mouth was twisted in a crooked smile with her bloody eyes, and Skylar's arm was slightly bent, almost like he had struggled to place it around her before the gates to the afterlife closed. J.C Brooke didn't believe in Heaven. However, she didn't believe in an eternity of darkness either, so there had to be something out there.

"_Something_", she thought. "_Something will make me change. Someday I'll change for the better. I'll just wake up and be a better person_".

Unfortunately, she only had merely three days left to change. And so far, she knew she was doing a lousy job.

* * *

**No Students Eliminated**

* * *

**32 Students Remaining**


	17. Day 1: Hour 15: 32 Students Remaining

"Adrienne, it stopped raining!"

Adrienne Spring (Girl #17) drummed her water bottle softly against her knee, playing a soft and gentle beat that went with the rhythm of the ocean waves in front of her. Even though her chewing gum had lost its flavor long ago, her big mouth was still chewing it like there was no tomorrow.

Sitting beside her in the sand, hugging her jeans, Erin Thompson (Girl #19) spoke in her quiet voice. "Shouldn't we help Tori, Adrienne?"

Adrienne stared. "Why are you calling her that? You know she hates it".

Near the foot of the water, Victoria Jenkins (Girl #5) was struggling to spear a fish with the stick she had sharpened. Unfortunately, since the fish didn't venture this far near shore and Victoria venturing out too deep would detonate her collar, she had caught nothing but seaweed.

"I don't know", Erin sighed. "I always call her Tori when I'm not around her".

Not amused by Erin, Adrienne scratched the skin under her collar and glanced over at Amber on the other side of the beach. She was munching softly on a bread roll and was having mild conversation with Shyla.

Adrienne's motive for tearing apart this group of friends had merely been survival and amusement. At school, all she had wanted was to see Amber trip down the stairs and break all of her teeth. She had single-handedly worked her way into Amber's circle of friends, masquerading herself as one of them.

And now, realizing the program was her fifteen minutes of fame, Adrienne had formulated a plan: _kill them all one by one, until only Amber is left. When there's nobody left to protest but her, finish her off too._

Adrienne had a burning dissatisfaction with her classmates, along with society. She was normal, while they were all confusing and different. If anything was different, Adrienne was frightened of it.

So she would destroy it.

* * *

"_I know you've been through a lot, Adrienne. But it will all be over soon. Okay?"_

_Six-year old Adrienne's eyes stared forward at the burned remains of her foster home, but she didn't dare to say anything. Behind her, the ambulance loaded in the body bags that contained the charred and burned bodies of her foster parents. The house was in complete ruins, and Adrienne had watched it all burn to the ground before her very eyes._

"_Adrienne, can you hear me?" the police officer asked again._

"_Yes"._

"_Can we do anything for you?"_

"_I'm okay"._

_The officer shook his head. "You're lucky to be alive. You're lucky you were playing outside when the fire happened"._

"_I know"._

_Her foster parents, the Gludinskis, had been a wonderful family. Not only had they sat down with her for breakfast, something her real parents had never done, but also, they had loved her. Adrienne had never been loved before._

"_Did any of my things survive the fire?" Adrienne asked. _

"_I don't think so, sweetie. The entire house burned in a couple of minutes. Like I said, we can do anything for you. Are you sure that you're okay?"_

"_Yes, I'd like to be alone, sir"._

"_Well, we're arranging you to spend the night with you grandmother in a town nearby. It's called Spanish Rivers. You might be there for a little awhile until we can straighten things out"._

_As the officer walked away, Adrienne thought of her parents. Not her foster parents, who had perished in the fire, but her real parents. According to her mother, she had been an accident after a New Year's party. The moment she was born, her mother left her alone with her father. However, in merely several months, her father had put her up for adoption and left to find, "better things in life"._

_Listening to the commotion going on around her, and smelling the smoke coming from the ashes of her home, six-year old Adrienne Spring smiled. The love her new foster parents had given her had been so troubling and startling that Adrienne's views of the world were warped. _

_Smiling sweetly, she reached into her pocket and felt the empty box of matches. Love was too hard for her to understand._

* * *

"Adrienne?"

Adrienne blinked, shaking away the memory. Knowing she had to look like the, "confident leader", Erin and Victoria were sure she was, she stiffened her face and continued to chew her gum.

"I've been thinking", Erin began.

"_That's a first_", Adrienne thought. "_Normally you and the others just suck up to Amber and let her think for you_".

"What if we don't escape? What if after we beat Amber, we're just stuck here until our collars explode? What happens then?"

"Nothing's going to happen to you and Victoria", Adrienne stated, knowing it was one of the biggest lies she had ever told in her life. "Just don't do anything stupid and I'll make sure your collars won't even start counting down for a second. After that, we'll be the first to ever escape the program".

"Well, maybe not. Have you ever heard of Shuya Nanahara?"

For the first time since the competition, Adrienne was mildly interested. "Who?"

"Eight years ago, when a program was being held in Japan, he escaped with his friends after they killed the instructor. One of his friends found a way to detach the collars and faked their deaths so they could all escape".

"What happened to him?"

"Well, three of them escaped including Shuya. The one who detached the collars died because he was injured from the program, so after that, the other two sort of hid out for awhile. Before they could board a boat to America, Shuya was caught by the government and sentenced to death. He was executed a week later".

Adrienne stared. "But what about the last one who escaped?'

"Her name is Noriko Nakagawa. She's living in America now, I heard. Our government would arrest her, but since she broke Japan's laws and not ours, she's safe. She's living a pretty secluded and lonely life hiding alone. It just shows that even if something is going great in the program, even as great as escaping, the government is always onto you. Are you sure we can get off?"

Instead of answering, Adrienne shook her head and turned away. Erin and Victoria's ideas frightened her. In her mind, she pictured herself staring back at the beach as she sailed away in the winner's boat. The corpses of all four of the other girls would be laying there, never knowing what they had coming. Every last one of them would die, and it was for a simple reason.

They trusted her; trust could sometimes lead to love. _Love_, as Adrienne had learned, only led to broken people and broken dreams. Life had been cruel to her, so the only way she knew to fight back was to destroy anything that was new.

Everything that went against Adrienne's code simply had to up in flames and her foster parents had learned this lesson brutally.

* * *

_The eyes of Logan Spruce gleamed as her fingers grasped her cheeseburger tightly. She was sitting alone, taking up two seats in the restaurant. Not wasting a second, Logan licked her lips and shoved half of the gigantic ketchup-oozing sandwich down her throat._

_Although there weren't many Fatburger restaurants in the midwestern United States, Logan prided Spanish Rivers on having one. It was her favorite chain restaurant, and although the cheeseburgers weren't the best in quality, they fulfilled her appetite. Every time she went to her local Fatburger, she would have the same order: a Kingburger with everything on it. After tearing apart the meat and cheese, she would snack on the leftover lettuce, onions, and tomatoes, fulfilling her appetite before she went back for another one. Honestly, Logan's appetite was never settled._

_And there was a reason._

_Her gland disease, which doubled the fat that was pumped into her arteries and resized her glands, caused her to be unnaturally hungry. Almost always, she craved food like it was a sacred thing. So nearly every night, stealing money from her mother's wallet, she would sneak out to eat her own feast. She knew it was unhealthy, and she knew it was nearly entirely her fault, but Logan couldn't help it: she was hungry._

_Today, instead of buying a Kingburger, Logan had doubled up and bought the seasonal Triple Kingburger. Weighing ten pounds and being nearly the size of a large sneaker, the burger was offered every year for a contest to see who could devour it in twenty minutes; the prize was five hundred dollars, a t-shirt, and the gratitude of having your picture put up on a wall. However, when Logan bought her burger, she refused to participate in the contest. She simple wanted to eat her enormous dinner peacefully without a time limit._

_Sitting in the side of the restaurant, she smeared mustard off her face as she watched the competition occurring on the other side of the restaurant. Several of her classmates, including Zane and his friends, had participated, as well as Prudence Mercedes who, regarding everything in life as a competition, was winning. J.C Brooke and Jesse Morgan, seeing the entire competition as disgusting, had already dropped out after taking several bites and were now cheering on Zane and Skylar. Rory, meanwhile, was vomiting out his cheeseburger in the bathroom._

"_Logan, did you know gluttony is a sin?"_

_In shock, Logan spun around and discovered that Jude Mercedes now occupied the chair across from her. He had placed a chicken salad on the table, and was eating it slowly as he analyzed Logan's chubby and food-smeared face._

"_W-W-W-What?"_

"_Do you want to play a game, Logan?"_

_He stuck his fork into a tomato and popped it into his mouth. He ate carefully, not even laying a drop of food on his expensive collared shirt. Logan's shirt, on the other hand, was a mess of stained ketchup and bread crumbs._

"_Why are you here, Jude? You don't have to sit here. There's tons of other open chairs. Look, you can sit over th-_

"_I want to sit with you", Jude said shortly._

_After that, she was quiet. Deciding not to look at him, she tried her best to continue eating her Triple Kingburger. She had always admired his good looks, but there was always something about him that scared her. His eyes had always seemed like they were waiting for something to happen._

"_Jude, I can complain to the manager if you don't leave me alone! He'll throw you out!"_

"_That's only because you're his favorite customer", Jude retorted. "How many times do you come here a week? Four? Six?"_

"_Leave me alone!"_

_Jude shook his head. "Not until you play a game with me. I'm going to tell you what I'm scared of, and you'll tell me what you're scared of. Does that sound fun?"_

"_No. I want to eat my dinner!'_

"_You can play and eat at the same time, Logan. Chew with your mouth closed. It's disgusting". He paused for a moment with his calculating eyes gazing away. "I'm scared of losing the people that I love"._

"_That's great, Jude. Now leave me alone"._

"_Tell me what you're scared of, you fat cow!"_

_It was the first time Logan had ever seen Jude angry. His entire face seemed menacing, and in merely a second, she decided her burger wasn't very important. Glancing around worriedly, she decided it was best to answer him._

"_I don't want to die", she confessed._

"_You don't want to die, Logan? But eating that cheeseburger isn't very good for your health, is it? Why are you eating it?"_

"_First of all, it's none of your buisness. Second of all, it's not my fault that I'm fat"._

_Jude rolled his eyes. "It is your fault, Logan. You know you can just stop eating any time you want. You just use your disease as an excuse to keep eating and eating. Here, I'll prove it to you"._

_Placing his fork down over his salad dish, he lined it up alongside Logan's half-eaten cheeseburger. Behind them, the sound of everybody cheering for Prudence Mercedes as she finished her burger echoed through the restaurant._

"_Choose one, Logan. A salad or a cheeseburger. What's healthier?"_

"_A salad…"_

"_Okay. Let's say your life and the life of everyone around you depends on you eating that salad. But on the other hand, there's a juicy cheeseburger right next to you. Which one would you choose?"_

"_Shut up!"_

"_Answer the question!" Jude sneered._

_Logan sniffled, feeling tears begin to build up in her pudgy eyes. She was no longer depressed because of Jude tormenting her, but because she now knew how easy the choice would be. Although she knew it was horrible, she would choose her appetite over her own life._

_Jude smirked. "Still scared of dieing, Logan? Well, maybe you should stop being lazy and do something about it"._

"_Jude! What are you doing?" a sharp voice cried._

_Logan turned around in her seat to see Prudence Mercedes glaring furiously at her brother. She was wearing a Fatburger t-shirt and a crumble of one hundred dollar bills were clutched in her hand. Behind her, the manager was tacking a smiling picture of her to the wall._

"_I told you to leave everyone alone!" Prudence snapped. "You can't keep torturing people like this!"_

"_She deserved it, Prudence"._

"_You deserve to get your ass kicked, but am I going to do it? No, I'm not! Logan, don't listen to anything he says. Jude, we're going home now"._

_Instead of complaining like Logan expected him to, Jude merely nodded and began to walk toward the front door with his hardly touched salad still sitting at Logan's table. Prudence, with a sigh, turned to Logan with a forced smile._

"_He just toys around with people. You just have to ignore it and not say anything to him. He just sees people as things he can play around with. Okay, Logan?"_

_As Prudence left counting her award money, Logan whimpered as she pulled Jude's salad over to her and began eating. When she was finished, in merely several minutes, she asked for another Triple Kingburger._

_Eventually, in merely ye__ars, her disease and eating habits would kill her. However, like Jude said, she was too lazy to do anything about it._

* * *

Logan Spruce (Girl #18) sat like a bloated whale on top of the car in the junkyard, crying out tears that leaked over her blubbery face. Her beefy arm was wrapped in her t-shirt, wet from the rainstorm, and was shaking as she hugged her closer to her belly.

Ever second, when her heart beat, it reassured her that she was still alive for at least one more moment. She had been hiding in the pit of garbage bags, but unfortunately, they had become sticky and unbearable from the fat leaking out of Logan's cut. Having no choice, she had been forced to move out into the open.

Her cut had broken open and now, it was swollen black and the fat had dried into yellow streaks across her arm. The smell was horrible, like rancid milk and vomit, and to top it all off, it had already caused Logan to throw up.

All her life, Logan had known she was going to die. It hardly made a difference being thrown into the program, but she never expected her demise to come this soon. The doctor had told her two years. Unfortunately, two years had become merely three days. Along with her impending doom, Logan's friends had all died. Mae Yamamoto had been among the first to become victim to the competition, and Risa Ridgeway, whose death had been the most startling, was also gone.

She had no one to turn to except the machete in her backpack.

Whimpering, Logan forced herself off the dashboard of the car with a loud creaking sound like a scale balancing. With her weight toppling off, the entire car heaved backwards and the inside of it shook violently.

_Clink!_

Logan's heart skipped a beat at the jingling clink that she had heard thousands of times in her life: it was the sound of car keys.

In every car in the junkyard, the engine was either taken apart, the axle was broken, or the keys were missing entirely. This car, a rusty AMC Gremlin, was the only one in the entire junkyard that was in decent condition. It was rusty-looking, the window was shattered, and the headlights were cracked, but it was a car. All it needed were the keys.

Not wasting a second, Logan swung open the cars door and climbed onto the driver's seat. The glove compartment was bare and the entire car smelled like cat litter. Heaving onto one side, Logan squeezed her pudgy arm between the seat and the glove compartment, trying to find where the keys had landed, if they had ever been there at all.

With a thucking sound, she realized in dismay that her hand had gotten stuck in the gap. She struggled to heave it outward, but unfortunately, her one good arm was now trapped.

"_God damn it_", Logan thought bitterly.

Suddenly, in the corner of her eye, Logan saw light glimmer on the floor of the passenger seat. Cringing in pain, she reached over her severed arm and felt around on the floor.

The keys had fallen from the mirror above the seat when her weight had shifted the entire car. What was it called? _The towering mirror_? Whatever it was, it didn't matter. With another clink, Logan's pudgy finger hooked around a thin metal ring.

_Yes!_

Pulling back her hand, she nearly cried out in joy when she saw the rusty-looking pair of keys in her hand. Shaking with excitement with her other hand still trapped; Logan managed to shift over to stick the key into the ignition.

For a second, there was a deafening silence as Logan turned the key with a soft click.

And then, the sound of a revving engine roared through the tiny, rusty car, prepared to move for a chubby girl who was far too young to drive.

Logan Spruce (Girl #18) had the only working car on the entire island.

* * *

Meyerhold Zemeckis (Boy #21) lay sprawled out across the bed with his handsaw swaying loosely at his side. His cartoon character sneakers, which lit up in flashing colors, clicked softly together as his feet dangled off the end of the bed.

The house he was in was directly outside the school, meaning he had investigated the treehouse in the back, and during investigation, discovered the corpse of another classmate. Mae's head had completely vanished. All that remained of it were incinerated scrapings of it and scrap metal leftover from her collar. Her glasses were askew in the puddle, and her hands were clawed out like a bear's, almost she had attempted to crawl away.

But Mae wasn't important to Meyerhold. He was thinking.

Even after his fight with Logan Spruce (Girl #18), Meyerhold had decided that he despised violence. It could have been the fact that his overprotective mother had forbid him to watch violent television, along with films, but it was more because of how he refused to conform with his classmates.

They all hated him, so if he played the game, he would be just like them. The guidance counselor at his school had always told him that he was much better than all of them and how he would never remember any of them in fifteen years. However, fifteen years was now a joke. He would be dead in a maximum of three days, and students like J.C Brooke and Chris Barrister would be a part of his life until then.

If somebody was different in Spanish Rivers High, they were bullied. This amused Meyerhold, because the idea of a, "normal", person was somebody like Chris, who only thought of sports and tormented his classmates when he was bored of it.

_They were all pigs feasting around a trough, all unaware that they were going into the slaughterhouse. They could fight all they wanted, but in the end, Meyerhold would win_.

Because he, like his mother had said, was the better person. In fact, compared to the ruthless bullies at his school, he was a model student.

Picking his head up softly from the bed, Meyerhold glanced at himself skeptically on the wall directly in front of him. Past his volcanic complexion of acne and smug grin, he was fairly average looking. His braces made his smug grin stand out even more, making him look like he was full of himself. But he wasn't. He was always right, so he couldn't be.

Stretching, he scratched the skin under his collar and picked himself up from the bed, letting his handsaw sway at his side ad he walked out of the room and onto the staircase. In the end, he wouldn't be a murderer. Once all of the public schooled animals killed eachother, Meyerhold would still be alive and be able to go back to his mother. Unable to return to his current high school, his parents may have even had to transfer him back to St.Bloomingdale's, where he would be accepted even with his light-up sneakers and sticker-covered lunchbox.

Walking into the kitchen, the first thing he noticed was that for some reason, the phone was flashing red. Had somebody left a message? Mildly interested, Meyerhold clicked the voicemail button as he swung open the refrigerator door.

"Hi Regina", a slightly worried voice said. "I was just making sure you, Sam, and the kids all got out of your house okay. I heard about the program and how they're taking you're house away for it. Are you okay? Give me a call, okay?"

Meyerhold rolled his eyes as he picked up a half-empty can of peanut butter. It was just a message for the family that lived in the house. Licking his lips, Meyerhold swung open the jar and dug his freckly fingers into it as the next voicemail began.

"This is the government voice messaging system certified for the 2008 program", a gruff voice began. "We are informing all residents of the program that will take place on your island. If you have not exited your house by now and fled the playing grounds, exit immeadidly or be prepared to be executed".

"_I'm alone_", Meyerhold thought. "_I'm alone and I'll just stay here alone until I survive. Nothing will happen. After all, mom said nothing would happen. And she had to be right…right_?"

With a soft beeping sound, the third and final voicemail began. It ran in static for several seconds before a delicate and small female voice began to speak.

And to his horror, he realized it was a voice that he had known perfectly since sixth grade. In an instant, his greasy hand dropped the peanut butter jar where it fell with a plastic clatter to the kitchen floor. This voicemail had been recorded when he had been sleeping in the upstairs bedroom!

"Meyerhold, come upstairs now".

In an instant, pimply-faced Meyerhold Zemeckis (Boy #21) swung his head around to face Lea Passington (Girl #11) at the top of the stairs. An iron golf club was in her hand and she was holding the upstairs phone by the cord and letting it dangle softly against her jeans.

"We've traced the calls", she said mockingly. "They're coming from inside the house".

"_No_!"

He spun around with his handsaw, nearly slipping on the rolling jar of peanut butter. Despite the fact that he had a saw, nearly at the same level as the golf club Lea had been given, he knew only anger, adrenaline, and fear had motivated him to harm Logan. That kind of anger couldn't manifest back so quickly. All he felt was terrified and powerless.

"I d-d-d-don't want to hurt you, Lea"

Lea didn't answer. Instead, her short body dashed down the stairs as she swung the golf club wildly in the air. Meyerhold shrieked, ducking onto the ground and putting his hands above his head.

"Stop! _Stop_!"

She didn't. Instead, Meyerhold listened in agony as his fingers were crushed under the weight and momentum of Lea's iron golf club. His index finger hooked sideways, painfully jabbing into his mangled thumb.

"Ow! It hurts, Lea! _You hurt me_!"

"Get up Meyerhold. Cowering in fear never solves anything. Act for yourself for once. At least Enrique actually made an effort to run away".

As he trembled, his cartoon character sneakers jittered and lit up in flashing colors. Whimpering, he rolled over and forced his mangled hands to grab his handsaw. Lea swung again, painfully jabbing his shoulder inward with a thick cracking sound.

"_Eeeeee_!"

"Get up, Meyerhold!"

Shrieking in pain, Meyerhold somehow managed to grip his handsaw with his broken and mangled fingers and began to limp out the screen door with his back hunched over because of the searing pain in his shoulder.

The moment he reached the screen door, he heaved his body into it and dashed outside. Lea's golf club ripped open the screen door behind him with the sound of breaking piano keys. Meyerhold's life was going to end on a low note.

"I had a perfect plan, Lea! You don't get it! My mom! I have to-

"Your plan was to hide and wait for everyone else to die!" Lea's voice screamed. "That's not a plan! That's a death sentence!"

"But my mom!"

Meyerhold dashed through the front lawn, catching a glimpse of the treehouse where Mae's demise had been caused by the small strip of a Danger Zone that lingered in that corner. Resembling a hunchback, he dashed across the lawn, feeling the swishing air of the golf club behind him.

Weaving out into the side yard, his back wrenched in agony as he dashed out into the street. Due to being unathletic, his heart was burning and a thick cramp was beginning to build up in his stomach. In gym class, he would usually cry and sit out. But if he cried now, he sat out forever. Until now, Meyerhold hadn't contemplated death at all. Why was he thinking about it now?

In front of him, pass the expensive and towering homes, the street came to a dead end in the forest. Hopping over a sewer drain, knowing Lea was only several feet behind him, he dashed through the circling trees and ran into the forest. His heart pumped hard, almost about to burst out of his chest like a popping balloon. Somehow, though, Meyerhold Zemeckis (Boy #21) was still running with his handsaw at his side.

"Hey!" Lea's voice yelled at behind him. "Before we never see eachother again, what kind of a name is Meyerhold?"

"It's a philosopher my parent's like!" Meyerhold screeched.

The moment his throat spit out these words, he knew he could continue no longer. The cramp in his chest had fully formed and only the lights of his flashing sneakers were guiding him through the dark shadow of the canopy over the forest. He clutched his chest hard, screeching outloud.

"_Eeeeeeeeeeee_!"

The forest opened out to a winding dirt path like a looping roller coaster. Meyerhold tumbled down the path, feeling the swift breeze of Lea swishing her golf club briskly through the air. One of his pimples was popped from the force, and the sharp pain caused his neck to become wet with a trickle of blood.

"Why are you doing this to me?" Meyerhold shrieked. "_What did I ever do_?"

Even though he couldn't see her, he knew that she as smiling sweetly. Breathing hard, she swung the golf club again, missing once more. "What did you ever do, Meyerhold? Nothing. That's the whole point. You sat back and cried when you were bullied and demanded other people like your spoiled mother to do something about it! You're a pig!"

The handsaw was swishing limply at his side, but he knew he didn't have the courage to use it again. His shock at seeing the acidic fat leaking out of Logan's arm had disgusted him, and now, he definitely didn't want to see anything else. Even if it was a life or death situation.

"Get back here!"

Almost suddenly, the world around Meyerhold opened up to a mossy hill where the setting sun over the island hung high above him. It would have been a romantic spot if he weren't fleeing for his life. He was so mesmerized that in an instant, he lost his footing on a loose tree root and went sailing up into the air.

He fell forward in an instant, realizing at the last moment he had tumbled off the bridge of the rocky hill. The world spun around him and before he could regain his balance, he fell forward in a lopsided forward wall that surged a terrible pain through his broken and cracked shoulder. The autumn leaves clutched to his sweaty and wet back and mixed in with his red and sunburned face. Behind him, Lea scaled gracefully down the hill, having no trouble at all navigating the slope.

"S-S-S-Stop!" he choked out.

She didn't. Instead, she kicked him roughly in the side with her worn-out sneaker, causing him to wrench outloud and tumble even farther down the hill. Dazed and disoriented, he didn't even know that he had come to a stop until Lea materialized in front of him with the iron golf club in her hands. Confused, he stumbled backwards just in time to avoid another swish of the golf club.

"You're killing somebody!" he shrieked. "How does that make you feel?"

Lea smirked, brandishing the golf club. "You're already dead on the inside, Meyerhold. I'm just finishing the job".

"You're crazy!"

"And I'm proud, too".

This time, there was no dodging the blow of the golf club. It connected roughly with Meyerhold's arm, causing an ear-splitting crack of shoulder bone to ring through the air. The pain seared through his arm instantly, causing him to yelp outloud.

"You hurt me! It _hurts_!"

If he was home, his mother would have made it better; she was his best friend, and best friends did things like this for eachother. He just wanted to go home. After all, like his classmates had said, he was immature, right? He wasn't suited for the program; why didn't they just send him home?

Shrieking, and knowing the next blow would be the last, he stretched his neck to see a gothic-like building looming up behind them at the bottom of the hill: a church. It was old, rusty-looking, and worn-out, but it was a church nonetheless. More importantly, it was a place to hide.

His fingers felt like they were submerged in transparent Jell-O. They felt wiggly and loose, but this wasn't a pleasant feeling; it was searing and high and ran through his hand to his wrist. Quickly rolling over, balled up like a fetus, Meyerhold forced himself to stand up and dash toward the church. Lea was still after him.

"_I don't belong here_", Meyerhold's mind kept screaming. "_I have the personality of a six-year old, right guys?_ _I'm an immature brat? Right? Get me out of here! I'm scared! I don't belong here at all!"_

The moment he swung open the double doors of the church, letting in the cool night breeze, Meyerhold propelled himself into the aisles and quickly began crawling around the corner. He nearly howled out in pain when his broken fingers touched the marble floor of the church. Lea's voice quickly entered the room, causing a chill to run down his spine.

"Meyerhold? Where are you?"

She walked down the aisles of seats calmly, taking her time, almost like she cared less about what she was doing to her classmates. Hiding behind the second row of aisle seats, Meyerhold whimpered and glanced down at his cartoon character sneakers. They were lighting up with blue flashes, and if he knew if Lea saw them, he was eliminated from the program.

"Come out, Meyerhold. Face your problems like a man".

"_I'm not a man_!" Meyerhold thought. "_I'm a kid! Kid! Kid! Kid_!"

Near the front of the church, pass the large altar, a moonlit paned window illuminated the entire church with a dazzling display of religious art. All he had to do was jump through the paned-glass window. It would hurt, he could die, but nothing was worse than dieing with indignity here with Lea Passington (Girl #11).

Glancing away from his sneakers, Meyerhold clenched his teeth and made a run for it. By the time he passed the seventh aisle, Lea was already zigzagging through the sixth and was hot on his tail with the golf club. The moonlight window beckoned him forward, spelling out survival like a first grade dictionary. Closing his eyes and panting from the running, Meyerhold hopped up the first step to the risers. The church was so dark; there wasn't even a single candle. It would be nearly impossible for her to see him.

_Crack!_

His foot shifted horribly on the step, causing it to sprain instantly. He fell to the ground in an instant, in agonizing pain from both his broken arm and twisted leg. There was nothing left to do now but hide. Whimpering, Meyerhold quickly hid behind the priest's altar.

"Come out, Meyerhold".

Meyerhold shuffled uncomfortably, feeling his sweat shift around his pimples like an arcade game. His entire body felt hot and sweaty, and he knew that just one movement would cause Lea to notice his presence behind the altar and eliminate him from the competition.

However, what was moving the most was his lopsided and twitchy feet. The cartoon character light-up sneakers jittered softly on the polished floor of the church. When he had bought them, the storekeeper slightly perplexed that a freshman boy would want them, they had said on the package that, "The slightest pressure will light up your night in six different colors!"

And at that moment, Meyerhold's sneakers clicked together.

The flashing lights went off in an instant, first blue on the soles and then flickering like laser lights to red. Because the entire church was pitch-black, the light-up sneakers were impossible to miss. Meyerhold squealed like a pig. Just like they had promised, the slight pressure had "lighten up his night in six different colors".

"_No_! It's not fair! It's not-

In merely a second, Lea's smiling face had peered behind the altar and bared down on him. However, instead of a golf club, she had a pair of bolt cutters in her hand. Where had she gotten them?

"Goodbye".

And with that, Lea closed her eyes and sealed the bolt cutters with the sound of a cutting lemon on his unprotected crotch.

In an instant, Meyerhold's eyes opened wide. His hands crept down between his legs, letting out a shrill shrieking sound as he balled up like a fetus. His sweat pants were now soaking wet near the waistline, but Lea didn't remove the bolt cutters. She squeezed harder, watching the weed's face swell up red. His thighs squirmed together, almost trying to soothe the pain.

"Eeeeee!" Meyerhold squealed. "_Eeeeee_!"

There was a festering popping sound, and finally, Lea decided it was time to let go of Enrique's bolt cutters. Meyerhold's pimply face looked deflated, almost like a balloon that was running out of helium. He was unprepared, selfish, and arrogant, and most of all, was dead on the inside. Now, Lea, the gardener, had to finish the job.

Meyerhold struggled to squirm away on the ground, crawling limply, but it didn't matter. Clutching the bolt cutters with her tightened grip, she shoved them hard down through his open mouth. His throat made an odd wrenching sound for a second, caught between the bolt cutters and his final breath, but that was it. Blood spurted out the back of his throat from the wound and his eyes stared up at the polished ceiling of the church that he would never see again. In fact, he could no longer see at all.

"_He had a cartoon character lunchbox_", Lea thought. "_It had all of these stickers. Everyone made fun of him for it, and he always wore sneakers that lit-up in all of these flashing colors. His name was weird, too. Didn't his family have a lot of money? Was that why I called him spoiled?_"

And that was all Lea knew of Meyerhold Zemeckis. The bad aspects she had told him had merely been cannon fodder to make her feel better. For a second, this troubled her. Then, deciding he must not have been important, she walked away, the bolt cutters swaying softly at her side. Behind her, the eleventh body of the program lay as his unmoving fingers grasped his groin.

* * *

**Eliminated**

**(Boy #21) Zemeckis, Meyerhold**

* * *

**31 Students Remaining**

* * *


	18. Day 1: Hour 16: 31 Students Remaining

Rory North (Boy #13) wrenched over in the trail on the side of the thorny bushes, coughing and gagging like an old man with his last breathe. His throat, swollen and wheezy-looking, was begging to have a hole in it exactly the size of the cigarettes he smoked. However, when he was finished coughing, he merely sighed and lit another one. Behind him, Roxy Patterson (Girl #12) stared skeptically. Besides occasionally pitying him, Roxy had mostly complained during their hike around the boundaries. What she was complaining about though was unknown. Rory wasn't listening.

"You're going to die one day", Roxy sighed.

Rory rolled his eyes. "Pity for me".

Like whenever anybody attempted to speak to him, Rory had answered the question shortly in his croaky voice. Instead, he let the smoke of the cigarette fill his lungs and lift him of his feet, making him feel like he was towering ten feet above Roxy.

After departing from the slaughterhouse, slowly losing the rancid smell of expired meat, Rory was surprised to see how Roxy had followed him, almost like they had formed a group the moment she set her eyes on him. Deep down, he couldn't wait for the moment when a confusing path through the woods would send them off on different trails, and he would never have to see her again.

He rubbed his sore eyes, feeling the veined purple rings that circled around them. On the body of Rory North, there was nearly a spot that represented the consquences of every drug he had ever taken. His teeth were rotten from his cigarettes, his face was pale and lanky from snorting cocaine, and most importantly, the blood on the inside of him was cold and corrupted; the result of being HIV positive.

"_You shoudn't have shared needles, Rory_", Jesse had said once, shaking her head sadly. "_Even if your cousin said he cleaned them first, you never know"._

But the words of Jesse Morgan were useless now. Hard-working and careful Jesse was now eliminated from the program, along with Skylar. The numbers of Zane's gang were slowly declining, and soon, Rory knew for a fact that three would either become zero, or very unlikely, one. Judging by all three of them, Zane, J.C, and him, he guessed zero.

"Rory, where do you even get your drugs from?"

"Cousin", he replied.

He began to walk quickly, shivering as he hugged himself. Unfortunately, Roxy still wouldn't leave.

"You know, my brother's friend has HIV. He's lived for two years without anything happening. We think he might have a good chance to live for awhile".

"Chicken Soup for the Drug User's Soul, huh?"

"I was just trying to be nice..", Roxy said uncertainly.

"Well, don't be".

"Too bad".

He barely heard her. Instead, he shivered as he walked on. Doctor Sherman had advised him to generally stay indoors for as long as he could, and now, he was sure he had a cold. However, when you had HIV, a cold was not simply a cold. It was death when your body couldn't fight back. Rory's T-Cells had already been low, and now, he knew even if he won, the infection would be taking over.

He started to walk faster, determined to lose Roxy. However, somehow, Roxy stayed up to pace with him as she glanced at him with a deep look of concern on her face. Before he even had a say in it, she felt his forehead. The moment her hand touched it, her eyes lit up in alarm.

"You're burning _up_!"

"I feel cold", Rory shivered.

He shook his mop of brown, curly hair, forcing himself to press on. Roxy just didn't understand. Rory wasn't the type of person who could simply, "become", part of a group. He had been a loner all of his life, and being accepted into Zane's gang had been his greatest accomplishment. He knew he had poor self-image, and he knew he was a pathetic excuse for a human being, but that didn't matter. Rory North didn't matter.

"Rory, you seriously have to stop walking! C'mon, we'll sit down together so you can rest. You'll just burn up if you keep walking!"

Over the trees, the sun and the first day of the program was gradually setting, making the sky a blazing clementine orange. For a second, Rory thought the warmth would make his coldness feel better; unfortunately, it only made his head feel like a refridgerator.

Before he could do anything, Roxy snatched the hood of his sweatshirt and swung him roughly to the ground. He stumbled for a second, but unable to get up, he merely lay down in the path. A thorny bush had cut his head, but he hardly felt it.

"Blanket", he mumbled.

"I don't have a blanket, Rory".

"Where are we?"

"Cuna Cielo. We're in the program".

"Go away", Rory hissed. "I don't want you here".

Rory felt his skin tingling, almost like thousands of syringes were poking into his arm. His tongue felt like an inflated sausage in his mouth, and it took all of his might to get his breathe past it and out of his mouth.

"Roxy", he mumbled. "Why are you here?"

"I really don't know…" The drama club student remained strangely silent, unusual for her, before she continued. "What was your plan to win this competition, anyway? Hide?"

"I d-d-d-don't want to talk to you".

And that was completely suitable, because Rory knew that he didn't deserve to talk to anyone. His entire life had been either standing in the corner of a playground at recess, looking through pamphlets for HIV, and most of all, being alone. He wasn't sure why, but for some reason, Roxy didn't want him to be alone. What reason did she even have to care about him? They came from completely different social backgrounds; the bullying stoner and the spaced-out drama club chick.

It just couldn't happen. He wouldn't let it. If Rory really had to die, it would be alone.

* * *

"You have to watch out, Sadie".

Sadie Mercedes (Girl #9) glanced uncertainly at her sister as they hurried down the trail. Every so often, Prudence Mercedes (Girl #8) would stop dead-in-her-tracks, worry of a sudden ambush, but nothing would happen. Unfortunately, nothing seemed to stop Prudence. Her protection for Sadie and her obession with her own strength and violence was starting to grab hold of her.

After leaving the barn, possessing the late Perry's M16, Prudence's devotion to her sister had spiraled out of control. In her opinion now, everybody was a single-mind, working for the government out to kill her. She had always said how when she turned eighteen, she would move away to an island where there was no strict laws, and more importantly, no program. At least she was on an island, now.

"Prudence, can we stop running?"

"_Just_-

"Prudence, we have to stop running _now_!"

Sadie stopped in the path, propelling her sister backwards. For a second, her sister seemed alarmed, almost like she had zoned out for a second. Then, reality seemed to grab her and she let out a sigh.

"I'm sorry, Sadie. I'm just scared. I mean, after what happened to Nic….I mean, after what's been happening to everyone, I just keep thinking you'll be next. You're all I have, too. Well, you and Jude".

Despite the fact that Cuna Cielo was a relatively small island, the two girls hadn't seen a trace of their brother, whom most of the grade was terrified of. Every so often they would hear a distant scream, but none of them matched Jude's voice. Besides, Jude didn't scream.

"I've watched everyone", Prudence continued. "They're all doing everything wrong. Perry and her friends! They were just making _fucking_ sandwiches and ignoring everything! Look whatever happened to them! Nobody knows how to play but me, and now, I don't even know if I'm doing the right thing".

"You are", Sadie sighed. "I think you just care too much about m-

She stopped. This was the exact speech she had made to Nicole before her death, and she had no desire to continue. She hadn't though about Nicole in quite a while, and now, she was beginning to feel quite guilty.

"Mom always told us to take care of Sadie", Prudence sighed. "I don't know if you know it, but that's exactly what she's told us practically since birth. She always knew you were fragile. It was almost like she knew you would become anorexic".

"Did Dad ever say anything about me, Prudence?"

"How the hell should I know? The only person he talked to was Jude before he was arrested. I think he saw part of himself in Jude and tried to re-create himself. It backfired horribly. He created a monster. I don't think I've ever seen him smile".

Sadie stared. "He smiles all the time".

"That's not what I mean. He's never been happy".

Sadie remembered how their father, before the government had gotten the better of him, would take Jude to the empty room in their home after school, training him. All she knew about her father was that he had made a living as a con artist and his creation of all three of them had been what he considered, "three mistakes in a row". Their entire lives were just games of tic-tac-toe that their father had never bothered to finish. After that, Mom had tried so hard…the only problem was that she didn't have a god damn clue how to raise children, particulary three who were as messed-up as them.

"If we find Jude", Sadie began. "I think he might kill us".

Prudence smiled. "If anybody even points a gun at you Sadie, they're gagging on their own blood".

* * *

Adam Spencers (Boy #15) did not consider himself strange.

All his life, he had simply been _average_. There wasn't any real way to describe his lifestyle. His parents were members of the PTA, sat down with him at dinner every night, where Adam was expected to be home no later than 11:30 on weekends. In general, it was the stereotypical childhood of a child growing up in a quiet, suburban neighborhood. Adam hadn't despised this lifestyle. He had just found it…_disagreeable_. It just didn't suit somebody who needed to be the center of attention and stand out.

When people surveyed Adam, there wasn't really anything to survey. He was an average-looking boy with slight pimples on his sunburned cheeks, as well as dark chesnut hair. The fact that he learned at an early age that he enjoyed being the center of attention didn't make his so-so looks and bland personality any better.

The only thing slightly signifigant about him was his uncanny ability to make anybody laugh, even in the most dire circumstances. He was the definition of a class clown, as well as somebody who was known to be the first to complain. If you asked anybody about Adam, the two word you usually received back were _whiny and funny_. It was an odd mix, but aside from occasional assaults from Zane's gang of deliquents, it worked fairly well.

Unfortunately, so far during the program, his class clown attitude hadn't done anything to calm his nerves; or the nerves of his partner.

As he trudged down the trail as the sunset streamed through the treen branches, Adam glanced over at Nathan. Although Nathan's last name, Carpenter, should have been announced far before Adam's in the classroom, a glitch in the system had formed their lucky partnership. Nathan had been born out of wedlock, and at his mother's, she had decided that a third marriage wasn't a necesarially good idea. Leaving her husband at the alter, she had grudgingly kept her birth name of Carpenter. However, she had no idea that when her son answered the program, he would be listed under the last name of her ex-fiance: Sowele. The pairing of their names closer together had allowed them to leave the school merely four minutes after one another. Right after Perry.

"_Perry snapped, though_", Adam thought suddenly. "_One minute she was making us all sandwiches, and the next, she had June around the throat. The bitch went loco_".

Whatever had happened to Perry, it didn't matter. Although she was a sweet girl, and her death was far from a good thing, there was somebody else that was preoccuping Adam's mind. Somebody that had abandoned him.

Almost as if he had read his thoughts, for the first time since entering the barn, Nathan spoke. "Were you just trying to scare Mitch, or were you being serious".

"I don't know. Have you ever expected something, and when it doesn't go how you wanted, your whole life just comes back and kicks you full-force in the ass?"

"No…".

"Well, that's how I feel right now. This is the program, Nathan. The fucking program, for God's sake! You would expect your best friend to team up with you, right? _No_! He ditches you for a schizophrenic cutter and a gay surfer with a ponytail. How would that make you feel?"

"I don't know, Adam…".

"Well, it made me feel like ripping off my collar, right now! Game over, you know? I offered him a chance to join us. I said we would find Peter, team up with him, and get the hell out of here. But he refused".

Actually, Mitch hadn't refused at all. The only thing that had happened when Adam had yelled at him, besides nearly everyone in the barn verbally attacking him, Mitch had merely stood there silently for the most part, unsure of what to do or say. But that didn't matter. He hadn't even bothered to wait for him at the school, despite the fact that their numbers (#10 and #15) were fairly close. Than again, as Adam knew very well, Mitch was a coward. You couldn't deal with cowards.

At his side, Adam swished his weapon, a meat carving knife. Nathan's weapon had been boxing gloves, useless except for close-range combat, but after further investigation into his bag, they had discovered something else that had likely brought bets on them in the program through the roof. It had been labeled, "special bonus".

"You read the manual for that thing, right?" Adam said.

Nathan nodded as he hit his chest. The metallic clink of his bullet proof vest echoed through the trail, scattering birds out of the trees. Just like all of the firearms on the island, Nathan's bullet-proof vest had come with a manual explaining how it couldn't take bullets harder than from an, "M240G", whatever that was…

"Where the hell could Peter be?" Adam snapped. "I mean, we searched the whole island. Did he bury himself in a hole?"

"Maybe he didn't. If he was bad and tried to escape, Ginnagup probably got him".

Adam stared. "Ginnagup?'

"It's a monster. A monster that lives on an island in the sun. Whenever you do something you shouldn't, you get in a boat with all of the other bad people and go to his island in the sun. He gobbles you right up".

"And you believe in this?"

Nathan shrugged. "I don't know. I've just been thinking about it. Especially now that the sunset is coming out".

"Where'd you hear it?" Adam asked.

"It's an old story. Urban folklore, I guess. It's on the same level as Bloody Mary and the Boogeyman. But still..".

"Nathan, you hardly ever talk, and the one thing you choose to tell me when you decide to open your mouth is a story about a sun monster that eats children who don't listen to their parents?"

Nathan glared. "It's not like that!"

"We're in the program. Shouldn't we be talking about escaping instead of telling ghost stories?"

"If you escape, he gobbles you up".

On the scale of people to be superstitious, Nathan Carpenter (Boy #16) was low on the list. Along with being an Honors student who excelled mainly in algebra and literature, he also had scientific views that were astonishing. Why would he believe in something like this?

It was probably because of all of those Japanese comics he read. What did they call them? "_Annie-may_?" Whatever they were, Adam knew they screwed up your mind, ripped it to shreds, and spit it back out to chew it up again. Maybe this was all something Nathan had simply read from a manga.

"Why don't you ever talk, Nathan?" Adam said suddenly.

"I don't know. I don't know how to…".

Deciding not to question him any longer, Adam found himself thinking less about Nathan's life and thinking more about his own. Adam Spencers; _class clown of the freshman class and concieted dickhead_. Back at school in Spanish Rivers, all of the other students who hadn't been selected for the program were probably completely terrified. Along with that, their parents were probably traumatized over the children they would never see again. In fact, the only ones who weren't shocked were Burke and the rich bastards that were bidding on them.

"I guess", Adam found himself saying suddenly. "….I guess I'm _sheltered_. I've been sheltered my whole life….and when I see people who are different than me…..Like Luke and Terry…I'm scared of them. I have to stand out to make them respect me just because I think they're going to hurt me. I've had the perfect life, and because of that, I just don't get the real world. I'm afraid all the people who understand it, and went through a real life that wasn't sitting with your parents every night at dinner, are going to hurt me."

"Like Mitch?"

"Like Mitch…..

Reaching into his bag at his side, Adam pulled out a bread roll, unwrapped it from the cellophane plastic, and began to chew it. It sucked; almost like licking sawdust. Somehow though, he managed to digest it and wash it down with a lukewarm water bottle.

"How long do you think you'll make it, Adam?" Nathan asked. "Day Two?"

"I'm making it to Day Three! I'm escaping! What are you talking about?"

However, Nathan gave him a sour glance that obviously read, "_Tell the truth_". With a sigh, Adam screwed a cap back on his water bottle and spoke.

"To be honest, I'm probably not even going to finish Day One. If I make it to Day Two, it'll be pure luck".

Nathan nodded. "If you asked me, I would probably have the same answer".

In his head, Adam's theories of who was playing the game rushed like a river with his classmates's faces. There was J.C Brooke. She was a thug, a bully, and most of all, a selfish and manipulative brat. Taking part in the program was straight up her alley. Still, she had her friends, and the thought of Zane's group murdering eachother was unthinkable. Still, two of them, Jesse and Skylar, had already been eliminated. In the end, J.C was as unpredictable, and likely just as frightened, as everybody else.

Along with her, there was Darren Warner. He had said flat-out in the classroom that he wanted to, "die", his classmates. But Darren, for the lack of a better word, was retarded. Would he have any survival skills whatsover? After Darren, the other likely player _was…was_

Almost like the world was playing a joke on him, two of the three students he had been thinking of were now standing in front of him.

Prudence Mercedes (Girl #8) and Sadie Mercedes stood in the middle of the trail. Like always, Sadie was bony-looking and fragile, and not even the samurai sword held loosely at her side could hide her poor strength. Beside her, Prudence, looking like her polar opposite, stood with her muscled frame, illuminated by the sunset. In her hands, an M16 pistol was frozen in time.

"_The Mercedes triplets_", Adam's mind finished for him.

In his mind, two boys, a shaggy-haired one and a sunburned one sat on the front lawn of their high school. They were talking. They were discussing a certain family, and more specifically, the three children of that family. It seemed so long ago, but still, Adam still had the same opinions as the sunburned boy on the front lawn that he once was.

If your last name was Mercedes, you were a homicidal maniac. Especially if your first name was Prudence or Jude. Along with that, you were different. "Different", was just something that Adam didn't do. It was complicated, but if you weren't the same as Adam, you were a threat.

Sadie was the first to notice him. Glancing toward the end of the trail, she stared, almost like an animal before being splattered by a car. Prudence, noticing them soon after, stared forward with her expression indistinguishable. Those faces in the sunset staring at eachother were almost like a picture that could have hung in a museum.

Suddenly, there was a rustling in the bushes behind Sadie's shoulder. Something metal and sharp, soaked with dark and wet snakes that looked like red pasta, edged out of the bushes, followed by a tiny baby-like face that was usually behind a book. And at the same time as he watched the girl, people started to talk in Adam's head.

"_I don't think she's the kind of person to flip out and kill everyone, Adam"._

"_She's a basketcase, dude. Wait until the year is over and you'll hear the body count"._

Adam's eyes grew wide. "No!"

With the orange sky reflecting on her newly aquired handsaw, Lea Passington (Girl #11) crawled out of the bushes like a spider. A deep wound was in her shoulder and she appeared to be limping, but still, it was Lea nontheless.

Without anothet thought in his mind, Adam swung out his arm in horror, the same arm carrying his carving knife, and pointed it behind Sadie's back. Although Sadie hadn't even noticed Lea yet, her jaw dropped in horror as Adam pointed the knife. Almost like a frightened child, she backed into her sister.

"It's her, Nathan!" Adam cried.

As Lea crept forward behind her, the eyes of Prudence Mercedes (Girl #8) grew wide. She cocked her weapon, aiming it at the two boys and preparing to fire.

At the very last second, Adam realized exactly what had happened.

Prudence hadn't seen the bible-reading maniac sneaking up behind her with a handsaw. All she had seen was Adam pointing a knife directly at her own sister. She had judged quickly, had loved Sadie too much, and now, her mistakes were going to be taken out on Adam.

In horror, he stumbled backwards into Nathan, feeling his bullet-proof vest drenched with sweat.He had unwillingly earned himself a braul with Prudence, the tough-girl jock who had rendered their gym coach catonic, and a bible-reading physcopath with a handsaw.

Adam's eyes bulged like framed windows. "I…I…

Prudence fired, richocheting a hoarde of bullets off Nathan's stomach. The metal made a barrage of horrible banging sounds beneath the fabric of his bullet-proof vest, and for just a second, Adam was positive at least one bullet had pierced through Nathan's vest.

However, Nathan stood. Screaming out into the mid-afternoon of the program, he swung his backpack over his shoulder and took off down the trail. Abandoning Adam. Just like Mitch…

"Prudence!" Sadie's voice suddenly cried.

Spinning around, Adam stared at the sight of Prudence Mercedes (Girl #8) falling to the floor roughly as she sweared in fury. Her kneecaps were soaked with blood and in just an instant, he saw exactly why. Lea had ambushed her from behind and sliced cleanly across her knees, causing an even and deep cut across them that spurted blood out across her jeans. Obviously, Prudence wouldn't be on the track team anymore.

"_No_!'

Leaping into the air, Sadie dug her nails into Lea's shoulder wound, causing the tiny girl to roar in pain and pry at her back. Lea's entire face became a red balloon, furious and covered with snot and tears as Sadie wrestled for the handsaw.

And although he should have been relieved, Adam was mildly surprised nobody seemed to care about him anymore. As the three girls wrestled to the death, he was simply staring from several feet away.

"_Stop_!" he yelled, feeling mildly like a complete dumbass.

Screaming on the ground, and struggling to do a bear crawl, Prudence's furious face glanced up at Adam. "Was this all it was, Spencers? Lea, Nathan, and you ambushed us in a circle?"

"No! I didn't even know Lea was there!"

"You tried to kill Sadie! Stop complaining and whining instead of being a man! Ever wonder why I _hate you_?"

Wretching herself up from the ground, kneeling on her wet and blood-soaked knees, Prudence swung herself up from the ground with her elbow swishing outward like an invisible chokehold. It connected roughly with Lea's jaw, sending her, Sadie toppling off her shoulders, falling into a rough wrestling posisition in Prudence's bear-like arms.

"_Eeeed_!" Lea's voice muffled out. "_Eeeed_"

Squeezing harder on Lea's neck, Prudence wrenched her backwards until she was roughly pinned to the floor. Lea's arm flailed outward loosely as she lay defeated. In fact, judging from how confidently Lea had attacked from the bushes, this had been her first defeat in battle.

"Now Lea", Prudence said, almost calmly. "I'm going to get my elbow off your mouth, and you're going to tell me everybody you've killed, and when you do, I want you to pay respect for that person. You're also going to give me one good reason why I shouldn't kill Adam and you.".

"You don't even know if she killed anybody, Prudence", Sadie reminded her.

"Look at her! She looks like she just walked out of a battlefield! She's obviously contributed to somebody being on an announcement. Ready Lea?"

As Prudence let go, Lea's mouth opened in less than a second. Glancing in anger at the two girls of the Mercedes clan around her, she puckered up her mouth and spit into Sadie's face. The moment it made contact, Prudence's fist also made contact with her face.

"Weed!" Lea shrieked, shaking the blood leaking out of her nose. "Weed! _No_-

"Answer my questions, Lea. If you don't start now, you'll pay twice for everything you've done so far in this game".

As the blood leaked from her nose, Lea's baby-like face formed a sweet smile. "What was your first question?"

"Who have you killed?'

"I've only killed two, Prudence. Does that make you happy? I bet you were expecting a lot more. I bet you expected me to have finished off everyone, right? _Isn't that right_?"

And with that, Lea started laughing. Whatever she had been thinking on the island, Adam could see it hadn't been good and it had easily gotten to her mind. Somehow, Lea Passington (Girl #11), the most silent but respectful girl in their entire grade, had played the game.

"Enrique Martinez may rest in peace. God have mercy on his soul, and the rest of his head", Lea stated. "The ashes of Meyerhold burn, but still, he's not forgotten. He lives on".

Sadie bit her lip. "What makes you think this is right? What could possibly make you think this is the way to deal with this?"

"I'm a gardener, Sadie. I'm a lost gardener, and soon, I'll find a way back to my garden to have a nice lunch with my aunt. Heaven's not real, Prudence. I know, now. Forever is such a long time to think nothing. I'm not dieing".

"So", Prudence said. "What about Adam?"

"Who?"

She glared. "Adam. You're obviously together. You attacked us the moment we saw him. You're all working together, right?"

Lea grinned. "You were right about a lot of things, Mercedes. You had to be wrong once. No. Adam isn't with me. He was walking down this trail off his own free will. He pointed at me and almost gave this away. I should've thinken twice to attack the girl who plays football with the boys and her bulimic sister".

Lea's comment gave her another slap across the face, splattering the blood from her nose across the trail. She gagged roughly, letting her head slump against the mangled knee that she had given Prudence. Apparently, she didn't have anything else to say and for some reason, she was accepting her defeat.

"Is she catonic or something?" Sadie asked.

Prudence shook her head. "No. She's just delirious. If she gets up, she'll probally faint".

For a few seconds, there was only a complete and utter silence between all four of them, Adam himself included. In the far distance of Cuna Cielo, the sound of scattered voices echoed. "Heaven's cradle", was really a hell.

"This is fucking insanity", Prudence said, rolling her eyes. "That's all this is".

"No", Adam sighed, not even knowing what he was saying. "It's Ginnagup".

Shaking her head, Prudence ushered her sister away, holding Lea roughly in a chokehold. However, before Sadie left, she shook her head and hurried back to Adam.

"I don't want you to take this the wrong way", she said. "I want you to join us. I really do. Well, Prudence doesn't think the same way. She's so intent on protecting me that she doesn't trust anyone else".

"I understand", Adam lied.

As Sadie walked away, to the soldiers in the school, it was just another player moving into a new zone. To Adam, it was just another abandoment and just another reason why he was the way he was.

* * *

"We're here, David".

Miguel Chavez (Boy #3) glanced up at the structure that looked almost like the pictures of ski lifts he had seen, yet he had never rode. The tram station was dome-shaped in an arched opening, and a rickity-looking staircase connected it to the loading bay. There was a table of brochures sitting just outside the steps, covered with colorful pictures of birds and trees.

David Rodriguez (Boy #14) was still edgy, and the signs showed that he wasn't going to get any better. Enrique's face had screwed him up brutally, and the once rude and arrogant David was now quiet and withdrawn. In fact, Miguel was scared of him; he still hadn't let go of his pistol. Miguel's machine gun, the heaviest thing he had ever carried, was in his aching hands as well.

"Do you really think we can find a way to get the tram to drop on the school?" David asked. "Even if we get it to stop on the cable right over the school, how do we cut it?"

"Enrique's bolt cutters would've worked, huh?"

David glared. "Reiki is dead. If that was supposed to be a joke, you're an asshole".

Miguel sighed. "Sorry David. I'm just thinking".

As they trudged up the steps to the tram loading station, Miguel's mind was polluted with images. Most of them featured him paranoid.

_Him at night, glancing out the window of his beautiful home, terrified of Enrique and David showing up in the backyard somehow…_

_Him convincing his friends not to come over…_

_Him telling ghetto stories about growing up in Brooklyn…_

He hadn't told his father about how he had lied to his friends. If Mr.Chavez had learned that his son had disgraced the family by pretending to be a stereotype to make friends, he wouldn't hurt Miguel. Like a good father, he would simply say he was, "dissapointed". That hurt so much more. In fact, it hurt even more than the fact he would never see his family again.

Walking off the final step, Miguel stared at the loading station. It looked, like he had predicted, like a giant chair lift with bright-yellow cable cars instead of chairs. There were several yellow paint cans in the corner, including one lone red one that had been used for the red numbers on the trams. There was a line blocked off with velvet rope to get to the tram, but cutting didn't matter in the program. Ducking under the ropes with David, Miguel glanced around.

"We need explosives", he said shortly. "Sulfur. Chlorine. Pesticide. Anything that will blow".

"There's nothing here, man. Are you sure this won't blow up the entire island when we go through with this? Didn't something happen with a bomb awhile ago?"

"Hiroshima?"

David shook his head. "No, not that big. Back in Spanish Rivers. Remember how those seniors made pipe bombs and blew their arms off in their house?"

"David, it's death by exploding collars or death by exploding chemicals. No offense, but they're exactly the same. Anyway, we're not dieing. I know exactly what I'm doing".

Shrugging, David turned around, and in an instant, his eyes lit up. "Look! A radio!'

Sure enough, on the table in the corner, an ancient and rusty-looking radio was plugged in with multiple colored wires into the wall. Rushing over, David let out a yelp of joy as he flicked on the switch.

"Miguel, the radio works!" he cried in delight

"Good luck in getting any service", Miguel said with a laugh. "We're thousands of miles away from any radio station".

At first, like Miguel had predicted, there was only static. Then, with a soft clicking sound, a beefy huffing sound of somebody coughing echoed through the tram station. When Miguel realized where the radio feed was coming from, his blood ran cold.

"This is the U.S Program Broadcasting System", Burke's cruel voice echoed. "Playing all of your classic songs since 1945. This one goes out to a very special student fighting out there named Miguel Chavez".

For several seconds, Miguel was too shocked at hearing his name too turn it off. However, when he finally realized what the song was, his heart skipped a beat.

_I'll kept you my dirty little secret…_

_Dirty little secret…_

Miguel screamed out-loud and, losing all touch with reality. He fumbled for the switch on the radio, struggling to drown out the music with his screaming, but the chorus of it still managed to slip through.

_Just another regret…Hope that you can keep it…_

_Dirty little secret…_

Losing all touch with reality, Miguel grasped the wires of the radio and pulled them out, spraying a spark of electricity in front of his face. David sweared in Spanish, jumping backwards as Miguel smashed the radio roughly onto the floor. Breathing hard as he backed against the wall, he forced himself to look over at David. His friend's eyes weren't angry; they just seemed shocked.

"I'm s-s-sorry, David".

David shook his head. "Why did Burke choose that song for you? Why the flying hell did you smash the radio? _Hablas ahora, Miguel_!"

"It's nothing. Just…Let's go back to our plan…Burke was probably just remembering some sick joke".

Miguel pictured his four-story home back in Spanish Rivers. His dad was at the front door in his buisness suit, just home from work at the food industry corporation, and was waving. His mother, wearing her pearl necklace, smiled as she massaged her pregnant stomach. His younger brother, Lorenzo, was screaming something. _Liar…Liar…Liar…_

And right next to his home, on the other side of town, David and Enrique's small and cramped apartments, the same kind he had pretended to have during his fascinating and untrue stories of growing up in New York, glared back at him.

And how had Burke even known about his secret? He had kept it so well-hidden. Then again, this was the government. They controlled them all like guinea pigs.

Miguel's entire life was a lie.

"David, you can draw, right?" he said, abruptly changing the subject.

"I grafitti. I don't draw".

Miguel shrugged. "They're both art. C'mon, just do something for me".

Reluctantly, Miguel and David walked to the station where, with a screeching sound, one of the yellow trams had just pulled in. Stopping it in its tracks with the breaking handle, Miguel hurried over to the paint cans in the corner. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out his wallet and pointed to a picture. For a second, David hesitated. Then, he smiled and nodded.

Reaching into the paint can with his finger, David streaked red paint across, almost like a cheap fingerpainting. However, just like he did with grafitti, he studied the colors and made different shades, blending them together. He studied the picture, confident in his work. From behind him, Miguel watched.

Although they weren't sure how long it took, the sunset was still looming over the island when the fingerpainted face of Enrique Martinez (Boy #12) was gleaming at them from the face of the yellow tram.

"Do you want to do the honors, Miguel?"

"Yeah".

Dipping his finger into the paint, Miguel smiled thoughtfully and wrote these words above the smiling red face of their friend.

"_Enrique Lives_".

As the two friends surveyed their memorial, David turned to Miguel. "Are you ready to start working?"

"Yeah".

* * *

**No Students Eliminated**

* * *

**31 Students Remaining**

* * *

**I love how Lea finally got a good ass-kicking from Prudence. I was annoyed at how Lea kept judging her classmates, and was waiting for the moment for her to finally get karma. Lea is definitely one of my favorite characters to write. You won't learn any more about the Mercedes triplet's background for awhile, but I'll tell you later on that there will be a large chapter dedicated to almost entirely them. Unfortunately, that won't happen until around Day Two.**


	19. Day 1: Hour 17: 31 Students Remaining

"Food!"

Sometimes, Winston was only good for one word, and although Mare usually had a snappy comment, she had to agree with him. The fresh smell of freshly baked bread and cake batter had filled the air, and several feet in front of them, across the small rain-soaked meadow, a red barn stood out like a landscape painting.

Since the program began, every inch of Mare's body had ached from the bullet that was still in her leg. Although the soldiers had merely been going for a shot to stabilize the other students, using her as an example, if it didn't heal soon, it could very well have been a kill shot. It wasn't long before her stomach began to pain too, reminding her of how she hadn't had anything to eat for nearly an entire day.

Winston Van Buren (Boy #19) limped forward in agony, made a frantic and lopsided dash toward the barn on the other side of the meadow. Forcing herself to smile, Mare followed him with the packet of files still swaying in her hands.

So far, toughening Winston up hadn't worked out very well. In fact, although he had frequently said he was glad he had met up with her, Mare was beginning to see him as a nuisance. Besides complaining about Demi or sharing some stupid memory about her, he had provided little to no help in the last several hours.

Anyway, it didn't matter. Mare, like always, didn't care. Or at least she didn't let it show.

In the distance, Winston dashed through the front door of the barn, nearly toppling over the doorstep because of his wounds from Darren. Watching him vanish through the swaying door and feeling her stomach practically screaming at her, she was inclined to follow.

Closer to her, another rickety door on the side of the barn swayed softly in the wind. Limping and biting down her teeth, Mare forced herself into a lopsided jog until she finally managed to get to the door and push her weight into it.

The room was slightly dim, and over the smell of cake batter, there was a horrible other aroma. For a second, she was slightly startled. Then, she decided it was best not to give a damn.

The back wall of the kitchen was splattered with blood and small fragments of flesh and skull. In the open cabinet, a birthday cake stained with blood and god-knows-what brought the smell of fresh batter and decay up her nostrils. To top it all off, there were multi-colored balloons scattering the entire floor. All they needed was a clown and they would have a birthday party.

And on the floor was the reason she decided not to care.

"Another one bites the dust", Mare said bitterly.

Leana's innards had spilled out like blue snakes and she lay hunched over against the cabinet. Her eyes were opened wide, almost like she hadn't expected what had happened until the last second. Somehow though, the smell of cake batter had covered the smell of decaying flesh and spilling intestines. Aside from being a decent member of the lacrosse team, Leana had an edgy attitude that Mare had somewhat liked. She wasn't that bad of a person, but she was dead now. Easy come easy go.

"_Oh my god_ Mare! Get over here now!"

"_Terrific_", she thought.

Sure enough, when she walked outside into the main section of the barn, Winston kneeling beside the corpse of chubby-faced June instantly greeted her. Her neck was bulbous and misshapen, and although her skin had been fairly pale before, it was now a deep shade of violet purple. There was a soft creaking sound and, turning her head, she grimaced at the image of the corpse hanging from the barn rafters.

"This just goes to show you, Winston. When people look at death, they just try to pretend everything is normal. Look what happens".

"We should bury them".

"No, we shouldn't. We're eating and leaving. There's a cake in the kitchen".

Slightly dazed, Winston sighed and walked off toward the kitchen where part of the massacre of the girls had taken place. Although the entire thing was hard to place together, the girls had apparently tried to live their final days as normal as possible. In the end, it had backfired horribly.

"Oh, hello there".

Walking into the corner of the room, Mare stared at the corpse hanging from the ceiling from some kind of whitish wire. The dark hair was shrouding the body's tan and lenient face, but she could still tell who it was right away.

She swayed the corpse back and forth like a swing, rocking it silently like a tire swing. Perry's face was swollen and blue. Her windpipe was clearly exposed in her shattered neck, showing how the hot glue gun cord had stopped her plummet to the barn floor. Although it was disgusting, she somehow looked peaceful.

"_Perry didn't care_", she thought bitterly. "_Neither did Mare_".

It was almost like a singsong rhyme in her head. Staring into Perry's eyes that couldn't possibly stare back, she was suddenly overwhelmed with an idea. It was horrible, it was ruthless, and it was entirely fit for the program, but still, it was an idea.

Perry had sat and made sandwiches. Mare had sat and smoked cigarettes. In the end, there was no real difference. Both of them had tried to simply not care and live their last days alive like it was a typical day back home. But now, staring at Perry's corpse, the klepto of Spanish Rivers felt a primitive thought rise in her mind.

_I don't want to die._

All her life, Mare had simply not cared at all. She had breezed through life taking what she needed or wanted, and in the end, she had gotten by with her easygoing attitude. She was a peaceful person when you left her alone, almost like a swarm of bees that wasn't bothered. All of that may have worked in Spanish Rivers, but not on Cuna Cielo. She could not give a rat's ass about anyone there, but now, that wouldn't work. The massacre of the three girls was an example of how not caring only led to death.

She hadn't cared about her feelings for so long, and now, they were all rushing back, along with her horrible idea.

Mare knew she definitely had the backbone to win. During the summer, she had nearly castrated Adam at the mall for telling a sexist comment to Roxy. And Roxy…All Mare had to do was find her. After that, the entire program was a breeze.

Shuddering, she glanced over at her partner. Winston was eating the birthday cake with a guilty look on his face. He had turned Leana's corpse over for some reason so none of the bullet holes were showing.

Winston was physically larger than her, being held back a year, but he couldn't be much stronger. All in all, he was a gentle giant who wouldn't hurt a fly. She had contemplated toughening him up, preparing him for their next confrontation, but now, he may have had an entirely different purpose. She could almost see it playing out in her mind, right now.

_Hey Winston? Can I see your switchblade? I'm going to cut Perry's shirt and use it as a bandage over my leg…_

It would be as easy as it was cruel.

"_Thanks Perry_", Mare thought bitterly. "_You snapped me back to reality_".

Perry didn't say anything, but still, she looked more peaceful than Mare had ever seen her. Perry's death had been an example. If you were lazy and didn't care about your own future, it wouldn't be pretty. Correcting her path would be the best choice if she wanted to survive. After all, what had happened to Perry could definitely happen to Mare.

"_Am I seriously thinking this? Playing the game_?"

But then there was another object in the picture. She looked like a mouse, squeaked like one, and to top it off, Mare hated mice. Her name was Demi. The prospect of Demi discovering Mare killing Winston wouldn't be pretty. The two were so unbelievably close that killing one almost seemed like the other would simply drop dead with them.

Shaking her head, Mare got up and walked over to Winston. His switchblade was hanging loosely out of his back pocket and it was an easy steal. However, she had grown to like him. Killing him was a completely non-existent idea. If he had to go out in her sake, he would go out with a bang.

"Winston, I want to fight you".

Winston looked like he hadn't heard correctly. "Huh?"

"We're going to take shots. You attack me, I attack you. First to drop dead makes the other person make a vow. If I die, you find Roxy for me and take care of her. If I win, I'll find your girlfriend and protect her until the program ends. Deal or no deal?"

"You've fucking lost _it_!"

"No, I think I'm just found it. It was lost before. I think I finally know which direction I should be going in. I can block out a lot of things and pretend not to care Winston, but I can't block out the idea of dying".

Winston's face was a mix between disgust and mild amusement. "Mare, if you're trying to be fun-

"Do I look like I'm telling a joke? Somebody is winning this program, so we might as well find out now. Only the stronger one is going on".

Winston glared. "When I started the program I just wanted to find Demi and die with her. I don't want to go out like a hero. Unlike you, I'm not scared of dieing. I'm scared of dieing alone! That's the difference between you and me!"

"It's not the only difference. We're nothing alike!" Mare shrieked. "And you don't have to die right now, anyway! Do _you_ want to have the first shot? You have a switchblade for crying out loud! You could gut me and leave! What the hell is the matter with you?"

"I don't kill my friends".

"Let's get something straight. I don't have any friends, and I'll die without any friends".

Winston raised an eyebrow. "Roxy's your friend".

"Well, that's different! And if you give me any stupid self-righteous shit you and Demi thought up, I swear, we're not taking shots anymore. I'll kill you right here".

"But-

"But nothing!" Mare interrupted. "What were we thinking? You've been trying to convince yourself you'd find Demi, but in the end, you know exactly what's going to happen. Let's look at the scenarios. You find Demi dead, Demi finds you dead, or you two miraculously make it to the end and, unable to kill eachother, you're showered in eachother's blood as your collars explode. Happily ever after".

"We could escap-

"Don't bullshit me. You know nobody escapes the program. I've been lying, Winston. I thought I didn't care. That's all I ever thought. Whenever anybody thought they were better than I was, or talked about me being a klepto, I just pretended I didn't care".

Winston stared. "I always thought you _didn't_ care".

Without warning, Mare went into a complete frenzy. She smashed her fist into the bloody birthday cake, splattering blue icing and body innards across the room. Her entire face was red, and any minute, it looked like she was going to burst into tears. _"I don't care! I don't care! I don't care! I don't care!"_

"Okay! _You don't care_!"

Mare sighed, hunched over as she wiped the icing off on her jeans. She sniffled softly.

"You know I'm lying, don't you? Perry probably didn't care, either", she muttered. "Her and her friends just blocked everything out and had a fucking birthday celebration. I'm not going out like that. I don't want to be like anybody else but myself. I'm never going to be like them".

"So what the hell are we going to do?"

"It's simple, isn't it? We're going to take shots".

Swishing back her spiked and green hair, Mare's knuckles tightened into a fist. She banged them together softly before raising her eyebrow at Winston.

Mare's life was a cycle. She stole to not fit in, and she couldn't fit in because she stole. She was different than her classmates, and she took pride in being different. When they paid her to steal something for her, she would simply comply. However, at the back of her mind, there was always the mild dissatisfaction of not ending up as that person's friend. But in the end, it didn't matter. She was Mare Ewing. The freakish badass who doesn't care about you or your friends.

There was a word for refusing to fit in. Non-conforming? Today, she was non-conforming to the highest extreme. Out of all her classmates, she was going to be the one to survive and standout; the winner of the program.

Because now, although she perhaps would tell you otherwise, she cared more than ever.

"Winston. Before we do this, I want you to know that even if I kill you, I'm not a bad person. I'm going to be remembered by everyone watching the program as some type of maniac with no soul, but I want you to know that I like you. You're not bad".

"I know".

"I'll tell Demi".

Without another word, Mare swung out her painted nails and dug them into Winston's face. The moment Winston's mouth opened to yelp out in pain, she gritted her teeth, letting the adrenaline run down her fingers. The warm blood leaking out of his dark skin soaked her fingers, and finally, breathing out, she let go. Pigments of black nail polish had become trapped in Winston's newfound wounds and she had easily broken a layer of skin. He was whimpering, but still a deal was a deal.

"Your turn".

Winston's eyes were full of tears. "No".

"You _pussy_! You agreed!"

"I never said anything at all! Sto-

Mare nailed Winston in the ribs, causing him to scream and bend over. If he simply attempted to fight, he would have been the strongest in their grade, being a year older than all of them; for some reason though, he refused to fight. Why was that?

"I swear, Winston!"

Winston staggered backwards, popping several of Perry's birthday balloons. Like a rag doll, he toppled over and fell to the ground. He was sobbing, and for somebody so big and muscular, seeing Winston crying was downright pathetic. To Mare, it was like watching a big baby.

"Take your shot!" Mare roared, pinning her knees on his chest. "You get two of them now!"

Worthlessly, Winston sobbed and shoved her softly in the shoulder, almost like he had just tagged her, "it" during some playground game. Finally satisfied, Mare's skilled fingers spun through the air, snatching the switchblade out of his pocket and pulling it back with ease. Winston's eyes grew wide, but for some reason, he didn't protest. It was almost like he was content with his fate; it only made her feel even more like a murderer.

"You attacked Darren before! Why can't you hurt me now?"

"Darren tried to hurt you!"

Mare rolled her eyes. "I've told you before, Winston! I'm not your friend, so you better feel inclined to kill me before I kill you!"

Flicking the switchblade outward, and suddenly caring more than she ever had in her life, Mare grasped it with both hands and swung it up into the air so that it was ready to connect with her former partner's throat.

* * *

"What's your favorite band, Amber?"

Amber Prescott (Girl #13) scratched the skin above her collar as she lay against the sand dune. After wasting all of their water bottles treating both Amber's wound and Shyla's migraine, which had now completely healed, the two friends had been forced to use saltwater as a substitute, which they quickly learned wasn't a very good idea. Shyla's vomit and bile was on the other side of the dune in a heap.

Amber considered the question. "What did Erin say her favorite band was this morning when we were about to get on the bus?"

"She actually said Bruce Springsteen. It was weird. I expected her to say some teen-pop band that can't sing and girls idolize like crazy. It didn't make any sense".

"That's because I like Springsteen, and if I like Springsteen, they all have to like him, too. Anyway, that's my favorite artist hands-down. I don't think people understand music anymore. The songs make music, but they don't have any meaning. You don't really get any feeling out of it. That one song of his…about running…it always made me feel inspired to go out and do something".

Shyla grinned. "I should play it so you can get inspired to come up with an idea to get us the hell out of here".

Amber chuckled. "Yeah. Well, all kinds of rock are good. John Lennon. Elton John. Billy Joel. I think I'm the only girl in our school that actually likes classic rock. They dig their Jonas Brothers and boy bands and I'm in the background stuck in the past".

"I think it's just that you're the only one that can think for yourself".

Watching the sunset in the sky, Amber considered the song she had been thinking about. "Born To Run", had always made her feel inspired to do greater things. It reminded her of no matter how horrible things in life were, redemption would arrive and she would finally be happy. She had tried to convince herself of this, but in the end, nothing had ever seemed hopeful. Occasionally she would have dreams of transferring to another school where nobody knew her or judged her, starting off new with a batch of friends that didn't masquerade themselves as clones of her.

In the end, all Amber wanted was to be normal. In the end though, it didn't seem possible, because no matter how hard she looked, redemption didn't seem to be anywhere.

"Shyla, let's make a run for it".

"_What_?'

The thought had come out of completely nowhere, and for a second, Amber was completely shocked at what she had said. However, she simply continued talking, still having no clue if she was making sense.

"The odds of every grid outside this zone being forbidden are really low. All we have to do is make a break for the woods. After that, we find other people, team up with them, and try to find a way to escape".

Shyla bit her lip. "What if only one of us makes it? What if one of us ends up alone? After all, you still have a bullet in your leg! There's no way you can run!"

"I can try, can't I? If one of us ends up alone, one of us ends up alone. C'mon! This is a chance! We'll just have to take a leap of faith and hope for the best. We can't stay here for two more days, can we?"

'Amber, I can't lose you. You're all I have. If you go, I don't know what I'm going to do. I don't have any plans to win this thing".

"Shyla", Amber began. "You're the only one that's been having any ideas since this morning. If there's one person to take down Adrienne, it's going to be you. You have what it takes. If somebody should survive, it should be you. You're damn incredible".

"Well…thanks, I guess".

Feeling the approaching night wind mop her hair across her face, Amber mentally gauged the short distance between the forest and their sand dune that they had transformed into their base. It was a somewhat long jog, almost half a football field, but it would definitely be worth it in the end. That is, if it succeeded.

Groaning as she forced herself up, feeling her leg pain from the bullet that Adrienne had pummeled into her leg with Victoria's pistol. On the other side of the beach, the three other girls were all sitting away from eachother, all lost in their own thoughts. The timing was perfect and the plan was perfect. All they needed now was a great deal of luck.

"You have to help me run, Shyla. The bullet killed my leg".

Leaning against eachother for support, the two girls took one step out of their little base. _Two steps_. _Three steps_. _Four steps._

"Remember", Amber noted. "If something happens, don't stop. Just run".

Shyla nodded. "We were born to run".

_Five steps. Six steps. Seven steps._

Then, gritting her teeth down to massage the pain in her leg, Amber Prescott (Girl #13) took off for a mad dash toward the forest with Shyla Ryals (Girl #16) leaning like a dead weight on her side.

* * *

Victoria Jenkins (Girl #5) squinted into the distant other side of the beach. Dim shadows were flickering along the shoreline, weaving in and out. Every time she glanced around her, every time she listened, everything seemed out to get her. The waves were going to swallow her up at and minute…and those shadows…those _horrible, horrible shadows…_

Victoria, Tori to her close friends, or the people that she called her friends, was a girl who always saw the best in everyone. In the end, she made everybody feel perhaps even more special and unique than they really were. She took things for granted often and savored life; that was why she couldn't die. Amber had shot Adrienne, and with that, she had participated in the game. Tori was a society girl if there ever was one, first being a Brownie before becoming the leader of her Girl Scout troupe. Although her respect for other people was high, her tolerance for violence and ability to quickly suspect people overshadowed it.

And with that, she realized that the shadows were people.

"Adrienne! _Shyla and Amber are making a run for it_!"

Sitting back against her dune of sand, Adrienne pursed her lips and smiled sweetly. "Terrific. This is going to be very interesting".

* * *

"Shyla, is anybody coming?"

Shyla's stomach was overwhelmed with a cramp, tightening the entire thing into a knot. She breathed inwardly, and despite her athletic skills as a cheerleader, she was barely able to run a lap around the track. Forcing her head around as she kept herself steady with Amber's arm tightened around her shoulder, she glanced behind them.

"Oh god! It's…Erin…and T-T-T-Tori…", she muttered, nearly out-of-breathe. "They're running. Adrienne's behind them. She's just w-w-w-walking, though".

Amber sweared to herself, forcing her muscular and tan cheerleader legs to dash away faster. Her sleek shampoo hair swung behind her, weaving in and out like a course of threads knitting themselves. They were only several yards away from the forest, and in merely several moments, they would be free. Not only free from the beach, but also free from the clique of girls that they had been bounded to all of their lives. It was their great escape.

'We're going to make it, Shyla", Amber said. "Jesus, we're actually going to make it!"

Her sneakers pounded into the sand, propelling her forward as her heart raced. Every part of her body leaked with adrenaline, giving her single tunnel vision of the redemption and escape that lay just beyond those trees.

"Erin, aim it right!"

Erin's brick sailed over Amber's head, and to her amazement, it didn't make contact with her head at all. Reaching out, she caught the hulky weapon with the same strength and agility she had picked up from the lacrosse and volleyball team. It was just another sign; this was it; because they were born to run.

"_Together_", Amber forced herself to say. "_We could break this t-t-t-trap…"_

Shyla, although nearly hunched over because of her cramp, joined in with an uneasy and out-of-breathe chorus. "_We'll run till we drop, baby we'll never go back_"

"_Will you walk with me out on the wire...cause' I'm just a scared and lonely r-r-r-rider_".

And that was when Amber saw the shadow.

It crept up on her shoulder, almost like a monster struggling to pull her back to the beach that represented her entire life until now. She struggled to shake it off in her sprint, but still, it clung on. It moved closer, showing how somebody was directly behind her, and more unfortunately, closing in on her. She knew exactly who it was. She blew bubble gum, she blew rumors and most of all, she blew hate. Along with that, she was only inches behind her. Knowing what had to be done, Amber eyed the brick in her hands.

"_This is for all the shit you've given me, Adrienne_", Amber's thoughts raced. "_This is for not letting me go to the bathroom without any of the cheerleaders being there…there was even that time I was having my period…This is for not letting me invite anybody but skinny girls who think they have something to show off to my parties…This is for…_

Letting her anger consume her, Amber roared like an animal and thrust the brick over shoulder.

_Thud!_

There was a dull sound, almost like the lid of a coffin slamming shut. For a moment Amber considered the possibility of one of the three other girls stumbling and falling when they were running, but it was absurd. The sound was far too loud to be a skinny teenager falling onto the sand.

And coincidentally, at that moment, a certain teenager did fall into the sand.

"Jesus…" Shyla muttered, stopping dead in her tracks.

Craning her neck, Amber thought for a second that she was staring at a deflated balloon lying on the ground. However, she quickly shook the delusion away when she realized the horrible truth of what had just occurred. All of that build-up and anticipation to finally end Adrienne's life had served no purpose at all, because in the end, the girl chasing her hadn't even been her enemy after all.

"Tori!" Erin shrieked.

Victoria's mouth was agape and her entire dark face now looked swollen and blue like an expired blueberry. A stream of blood leaked from her mouth where most of her teeth had been shattered. One lone tooth had even completely sliced through her lip from the impact, and to top it off, a certain weapon was leaning lopsidedly against her mangled head: Erin's brick.

"A-A-A-d-d-d-ri-e-

Victoria's lip shook when she spoke. Her eyes stared forward dimly, almost like she could no longer see the circle of the most popular girls in school that were all around her. Shaking her head, Adrienne sighed, bent down, and picked up their dying friend's former weapon: the Colt pistol.

"Victoria Jenkins", she began. "She started as a girl who trusted her friends, and at the mention of them falling apart, tried to cling on for her life. She was as a girl who thought she knew who her friends were and made the best out of everyone. Now, it's over. Rest in peace, Tori."

Closing her eyes, though not ceasing to chew her gum, Adrienne pulled the trigger, rapidly and unloading an entire clip into the head of Victoria Jenkins (Girl #5). In a hammersmash of blood, her eye imploded inward as her lip instantly stopped quivering. Their clique of five was now reduced to a clique of four.

"Your death isn't going to be in vain, Tori", Adrienne sighed. "And I'll make sure of that".

Motioning for Erin to follow, Adrienne began to walk back to the other side of the beach. However, before she moved merely a foot, she turned back to smile sweetly at Amber.

"You see, this is why you have to let me make decisions for you, Amber. If I don't, you'll just endanger yourself and other people. Poor, poor, Victoria. Well, easy come easy go. Keep in mind Amber, I'm not going to give you a mercy kill. When your time comes, it'll be slow and painful".

As Adrienne strutted away, popping yet another bubble with her mouth, Erin's long, brown hair hung over her face as she glanced down at her friend's corpse. Then, with a childish look on her face, she glanced up.

"Tori was my friend", she began. "And you killed her".

Amber stared. "I-

Shaking her head, Erin whimpered and followed Adrienne away, leaving Shyla and Amber once again alone. Although there had been many awkward moments in the program between her and her best friend, nothing had prepared her for this; nothing had prepared her for the murder of the most good-natured one in their group who had lost her mind when the group collapsed. It was beyond awkward. In the end, there was in fact no real world to describe it.

"Shyla…That wasn't my fault...was it?"

Glancing down at Victoria's corpse, or what remained of her splattered head, Amber realized something. In all honesty, this girl that was now a body had been a complete stranger to her. She had latched onto her clique like a leech, wanting to be, "pretty", but aside from that and the fact she was a Girl Scout, there was nothing else. What kind of a person had she been?

And still, somehow, Amber felt responsibility for her; almost like she had created her.

_Tori, wake up…It's time for gym class…We're going to jog in our big group around the track…I won't talk to you and you won't talk to me…In fact, I didn't even know your last name until this morning…But that doesn't matter, does it? That's just part of being friends with good ol' Amber._

"Shyla, answer me, damn it! Did I kill _her_?"

When Shyla didn't respond, Amber got her answer.

* * *

A boy, slumped against the side of a foul-smelling slaughterhouse, wrinkled his nose as he quickly read through his Japanese manga, scanning the images from right to left. His auburn hair was combed neatly, and if it wasn't for the collar around his neck, he could have simply been a boy relaxing and reading a book outside.

Reading a book was like pure fantasy…

And Nathan Carpenter (Boy #16) lived in a world of, as he liked to describe it, pure fantasy.

In a recent manga he was reading, _Aoi Sesei_, the main character Kasumi Aoi had went on a quest with several other samurais to bring justice back to their village. They had gone hunting for the dark samurais, which they had eventually caught. In the end, Kasumi had failed, yet learned a valuable lesson about teamwork and leadership through his hunting skills. It was cliché, but still, Nathan's brain had digested this and several other stories. In fact, his head was a living encyclopedia of plot twists, characters, story structure, and grammar.

And during all of this, not once had he looked out into the horrifying real world waiting just outside the library.

The real world was a frightening, frightening place that was nothing like the books Nathan read. Children graduated and were thrown into a dangerous world, much like the program itself, where they fought to survive. You had to make a family. You had to get a job. You had to provide. For somebody like Nathan, who connected with more imaginary worlds than reality, this entire thought seemed almost like a chore. He wanted an adventure, just like the characters that he had spent his entire life reading about had triumphed.

In the beginning, although the thought infuriated him, he hadn't been scared when it had been announced they were in the program. Leana had shrieked, Victoria had burst into tears, and Jesse had hugged Skylar, but for some reason, Nathan had merely nodded and sat quietly in his seat.

This was what the entire thing was. _An adventure_.

And if he deemed all of his classmates as part of the novel, it would all go so much quicker. Adam, like he had said to him earlier, was merely a, "plot device". He almost seemed to be there purely to complain, and the odds of him winning were slim. However, aside from their brief-run in with the Mercedes girls, the book was turning out very dull. Along with that, in Nathan's eyes, the characters were all very boring and predictable.

They could try to disguise themselves as pretty showgirls wearing more skin than clothes. They could try to disguise themselves as All-American jocks that were the kings of the school. They could disguise themselves as brainy nerds, much like Nathan was himself. They could even fight and bicker like children about, "who was dating who", or who was, "talking bout' who", and most recently. "who knows how to escape the program?"

But it didn't matter. Because in the end, characters were characters. And like all novels or mangas, there were twists that would end the program sooner than he expected. He wasn't a brutal maniac like Lea, but in no time at all, the others would drop likes flies while Nathan simply sat in the background, enjoying the adventure.

And if somebody got in his way, he would simply slaughter them. After all, when you had a bulletproof vest who needed a high-powered machine gun or a meat knife.

"_Nathan Carpenter, the protagonist of the story, emerged from the woods_", he thought dully. "_His smile was gone, much like the activated red light on his collar._ _Soaked in blood and his glasses askew on his face, the winner dropped the gun loosely to the ground and walked to the open arms of the eager reporters_".

Much like Kasumi Aoi had, it was time to bring justice back to his village. It was time to go hunting. And after that, he would never have to face the real world ever again.

* * *

**Eliminated**

**(Girl #5) Jenkins, Victoria**

* * *

**30 Students Remaining**


	20. Day 1: Hour 18: 30 Students Remaining

In life, everybody reacts to violence a different way. Some join in, angry at the world and determined to make a point, while others just join in for the plain sake of violence being violence. Others protest, deciding what is right and what is wrong, and others simply become bystanders, too frightened to do anything other than watch the carnage from the side. In the end, it all boils down to the fact that people don't want to be the ones the get hurt.

Winston Van Buren (Boy #19) didn't fit any of these categories. Instead, he was the type to let himself lay down on the floor of a barn and be mangled by a switchblade.

"Mare…Calm down. _Please_!"

Mare, the flicked blade swung high above her head, was sweating like a melting ice cube. Her face was red and inflamed, and at any minute, she looked like she would explode. Whatever she had seen in the last twenty minutes had completely altered the person she once was, or the person she had been pretending to be for that matter. The game had finally gotten to her.

"You don't have to do this! What does this add to anything? You always wanted to stand out! How do you think the government sees you right now? You're like a cockroach wandering around with all of the other cockroaches. The more you kill, the more they get what they w-

"_Shut up_!"

Mare flicked the blade in a fluid motion across his throat, almost like a swift papercut. His skin opened like a useless extra mouth, instantly sputtering out wet and dark blood that ran down his sweat-stained shirt. He gurgled, making a fishlike noise, and his hands fingered in the mess, almost like he was struggling to put himself back together.

"There, I slit your throat", Mare said pleasantly. "See what trusting people leads to?"

Winston stammered, and somehow, managed to pick his hand up and point at the kitchen; directly at the cake with the word, "Friends", written across it in creamy icing. Mare, completely dumbfounded, simply shook her head. Her green liberty spikes looked haunting in the sunset.

"Do we have to go through this again? Not everybody is your friend, Winston. In fact, you're actually starting to piss me off quite a bit. Now, how many shots do you get now? Three? Well, since I slit your throat, I'll double it and give you six. There! Six shots! That should be enough to kill me!"

Winston's eyes stared forward. Fingering and cringing at his ruined neck, he shook his head softly. Obviously, without proper medical assistance soon, he would probably never talk again. His lungs had been absolutely mangled, and just breathing seemed to put him under agonizing pain. Mare had considered plunging the cut deeper, maybe even into his windpipe, but it wasn't worth it. She had offered Winston the opportunity of taking shots, which for some reason, he refused to do. Whatever became of him was his fault. After all, the only person Mare needed to care about now was Mare. Everyone else was just cannon fodder that had been red shirts from the very beginning.

Clicking her tongue in disapproval, she fingered with Winston's bloody switchblade in her hand. She flicked it downward, locking it in place with ease. She brought her hands neatly through her punk-styled hair, staining and streaking the green spikes with red. Then, for no particularly good reason, she streaked two dabs of Winston's blood across her cheeks like Indian war paint. It got her into the moment; it made her care.

Caring, now, was a good thing after all.

The rest of the program would be a breeze now. After finding Roxy, and keeping her promise, she would tell Demi of Winston's fate and protect her until the competition was over. If Demi attacked her, she would simply be spewing out blood from her neck, much like her boyfriend was now. Although Mare admitted that she was a creep, she wasn't a liar. There was definitely a guaranteed difference. Killing whoever got in her way, finishing off the rest of the students, Mare would win and go home.

Because if she didn't, and she didn't care, she would simply end up hanging from the rafters of a barn like Perry.

"Oh, you're still alive, Winston?"

Glancing over, she stared as Winston's eyes met hers. He looked terrified, confused, and most of all, he looked like he had been betrayed. However, no matter what she told him, she knew the truth. To Winston Van Buren, she was still his, "friend". And, for some reason, Winston didn't kill his friends.

Hunching over, she inspected the sputtering wound across Winston's neck. The entire front of his t-shirt was soaked red, and past that, he was sweating from his constant breathing.

"It's not as deep as you think. I don't think I broke anything other than your skin. Keep the blood in, and you might live for awhile if you get your ass off the ground and get out of here. Sayonara".

Quietly, she picked herself up from the ground, dusted herself off, and walked off with the switchblade in hand and her daypack swung around her shoulder.

She started reading aloud: "Mare Ewing…December 15th, 1993. 14. Subject suffers from kleptomania, resulting in selfish and secluded attitude. Refused cognitive-behavioral therapy, yet still takes naltrexone, a drug used for kleptomania, daily. Dyes her hair to stand out from her classmates in an act of hiding who she is in a cry for attention. Famil-

_Thud!_

Mare Ewing (Girl #3) was knocked unconscious as she exited the front door of the barn.

The blunt end of the pistol had smashed roughly into her face, chipping her teeth and even cracking one inward like a hammer forcing a nail into her gums. She stumbled, feeling her eyes roll backwards softly.

Her files still clutched in her hand, Mare fell forward limply onto the wet grass of the meadow. Beside her, a muscled boy rocked back and forth as he gently stroked his sideburns. He had sunburn, and without his mother to bathe him in sunscreen, he was left to burn in the sun. However, it didn't matter. If he ever wanted to see his mother again, there were much more pressing matters at hand.

Darren Warner (Boy #20) thanked his pistol quietly, using his manners like he had been raised to, before tucking it into the small and uneven pocket of his jeans. After his weapon, specifically a Glock 17 pistol, had run out of ammunition, he had been forced to reload. Although it had been difficult, particularly for somebody like Darren with a short attention span and limited temper, it had been a living nightmare where he had nearly accidentally shot himself in the face. He had considered calling for help from one of his classmates, particularly Risa, who always helped him in his special education classes, but he knew they would simply confuse him more with their instructions and words.

"_You'll be home soon_", his mom said in his mind. "_Keep running. I'm waiting at home. Just keep running. I'll be waiting right at the porch for you, Darren_".

Darren didn't want to be a war man anymore. He, knowing no other word for it, was sad. He wanted to go home from the confusing island where nothing, especially his classmates, made any sense whatsoever.

So if he simply died more people, like Mr.Burke had said, he would go home. His mother would treat his sunburn, he would watch cartoons, talk to his dolls in his basement, and he would go to sleep. The next day he would go to school again, and after that, his mother would hug him in the parking lot. She would be waiting. Unlike everyone else, all of the war men trapped in the war zone, she made sense.

Darren cocked his pistol and started running.

* * *

"Truth or dare, Peter?"

"Truth".

Peter Juntz (Boy #9) was lying against the equipment shed with his blonde wig removed nestled in his lap. A cigarette was held loosely in his hand, spewing out the smoke that he had let fill his lungs. The holes that would start the fuse to trigger his death were dug several feet away, and now, the only chore that remained was throwing the dirt into the school's Danger Zone to make a path for him to walk across. After that, it would be smooth sailing; well, for everyone else anyway.

When he had recommended that they play truth or dare to ease their troubles, the reactions of Tristan Igolovosky (Boy #8) and Travis Igolovosky (Boy #7) had been varied. Tristan had been complied, almost like he always did, while Travis had explained how he didn't want any buisness at a, "faggot slumber party". However, when both his brother and Peter were laughing as they asked eachother questions, he had been forced with no choice but to join in too.

"We'll do an easy one", Tristan explained. "What's your greatest fear?"

Peter considered it for a second before answering. He nearly gagged on the smoke from his cigarette, but he was somehow able to keep it down.

"That's easy. It's dying".

Travis, sitting cooly beside them, smirked. "That's a little ironic for somebody who's practically decided to kill themselves by tomorrow".

Tristan scowled. "I told you to leave him the hell al-

"It's your turn, Tristan", his brother cut in abruptly. "Truth or dare?"

"Fine. Truth".

"What's your biggest secret?

Tristan Igolovosky, about to say something, suddenly pursed his lips. His mind had obviously latched on to something that he was either to embarrassed or too frightened to say. He blushed slightly, making the other two want to know even more.

"We're not going to laugh or anything", Peter said. "There's a chance we're going to die. You might as well say whatever you need to".

"You promise not to make fun of me?"

"Sure".

"Well, it was at Amber's birthday party two years ago. Y'know how she only invites football players overdosed on testosterone or anorexic cheerleaders? Well, somehow, I got an invite. The only reason I ever got for it was that one of the girls there had a crush on me. Anyway, that's not the point. Do you guys know the game "_seven minutes in heaven_"?"

Peter nodded. "Yeah. Get into the closet with your partner and make out, right?"

"Well, that's one version of the game. In the one everybody there was playing, you don't go in with your partner. Instead, they blindfold you and just shove you in with somebody random. Once you leave, you sort of never know who you just had, "seven minutes in heaven", with. I was by the punch bowl when they were playing, and for most of the party, I was just hanging out and cracking jokes to girls. I didn't really like Amber at all, to begin with. By the closet, Adrienne was blindfolding Logan Spruce. She-

Travis's eyes were wide. "Amber invited _Logan_ to her party?"

"Well, it was all to mess around with her. Anyway, they blindfolded her and sent her into the closet. She almost didn't fit, but somehow, they closed the door. Seven minutes later, she walked out smiling and wiping her mouth like she'd just seen Jesus walk on water. The moment she walked away, the entire cheerleading team just dropped to the floor laughing. I knew something was up, so when everybody started leaving a couple hours later, I walked into the closet". Tristan glanced down at the ground, almost blushing. "It was a pig mask taped to the wall with all of this wet gum covering the pig's lips. There was a dried-out slice of dry meatloaf hanging out of the mouth. I think Logan must have thought the meatloaf was the tongue and the wet gum on the pig's lips were the guy's real lips".

"The hell?" Peter asked. "Didn't she taste how raw the tongue was? Didn't she smell it?"

"The meat was so dried-out and ancient, Peter. It was almost gray. When you hit it, it squirmed like a worm. If it had any taste at all, the taste probably died of old age a year before. Same thing with the smell. Even if she smelled anything, it didn't matter. It was probably her first kiss. If I were her, I would probably think it was somebody's tongue too. To top it off, the whole thing was in a pitch-black closet. Logan walked out of that party happy as hell. I wanted to say something but…well…I guess my biggest secret is if somebody is enjoying doing something, I just can't step in to say no and ruin their time; including your plan, Peter".

"I don't think that's anything to laugh at, Tristan", Peter sighed. "You just like seeing other people being happy".

An awkward silence followed Tristan's story. Travis shuffled uncomfortably on the ground, hugging his knees, while Peter stared at the sky. The sunset had completely loomed in, warning the island of the first night of the program that would arrive shortly It was going to be a good night; it would stay that way.

"Can I go now?" Travis asked. "I'm already taking truth".

Peter had almost forgotten that they were still playing. Travis was staring at the ground as he hugged his knees, his brown and short hair not at all moved by the wind in the campfire.

Tristan shrugged. "Ok, Travis. I'll send the arrow back at you. What's your greatest secret?"

"I get jealous of other people".

"That's too simple", Tristan snorted. "I told a full-blown story and you just give something shitty like that?"

"It's not just that. I'm jealous of y-

"Good evening children!"

Travis's voice was immeadidly cut off by the crackly and metallic voice of Burke booming over all of the intercoms and microphones across the island. All three of the boys tensed up, forgetting the carefree game that they had just been playing; it was back to the real world.

"How is everyone?" Burke's crackly voice asked. "Tired? Confused? Dead? Well, the body count was much more decent this time around. I have to say, I've actually been entertained. Keep it up. Well, onto the deaths. For the girls, we had June Harrison (Girl #4), Leana Devora (Girl #2), Perry Rumbaugh (Girl #15), and Victoria Jenkins (Girl #5). It's a pity; the lacrosse team won't be doing very well this season. Oh well. Although it's officially against the rules of the competition to give out any details concerning the deaths, I'll tell you right now that if you little bastards want to keep your lunch down, you better stay away from the barn. Now, onto the boys. Unfortunately, we only had one: Meyerhold Zemeckis (Boy #21), who didn't quite have the _balls_ cut out for this game. For some reason, the girls are dying suprisingly quickly. In fact, we've had the deaths of only four boys and eight girls. Show some girl power or grow some backbone if you want to get out of here. It's your choice. This leaves us with a total of five students eliminated in the last six hours, leaving thirty of you still alive".

"For the Danger Zones, I figured I'd go leniant with you kids this time. There will only be one during the next six hours. It's a shame. Our viewers just aren't enjoying throat-bursting gore like they did last season. Anyway, at 6:50, the next Danger Zone will be C2. I repeat, C2. Once again, you've all been giving a stellar performance. The ratings have never been higher. Burke out".

With the dull electronic thud of the intercom turning off, the faces of their five classmates that were no longer eligible players in the game flashed through Peter's mind. Like Burke had said, Leana and June, both stellar athletes on the lacrosse team, had met their end. Leana had been kind of ditzy, but in the end, she was just a girl who didn't think before she talked. June had been somewhat of a bully, but her sportsmanship and ability to unite a team were astonishing. Perry was a geek, no other word to describe her, and Peter regretted that he hadn't gotten the chance to know her. Finally, out of all five, Meyerhold had definitely deserved a ticket out off Cuna Cielo the most. With the qualities of being a spoiled pig and a judgmental bastard, there really weren't any good qualities to list. Either that or all of the good qualities just hadn't had a chance to show before he died.

"The game continues", Tristan said suddenly in a low voice. "Tune in later for another blistering continuation of the award-winning program on ESPN".

"Do any of you guys actually watch it on TV?"

Tristan shrugged. "Travis and I were never allowed to. I remember thinking it was just another reality show when I was little. I always thought it wasn't real. In fact, until now, I've always tried to convince myself that it wasn't real".

"Well, I watch it", Peter sighed. "I don't have a choice. My dad's a sport fanatic. He sits on his ass all day, watching baseball and criticizing the mistakes the players make when he can't even get off of his own hide to go to the kitchen. Anyway, his favorite sport on television is the program. Every season, he just sits there and makes us all watch it. I tried to keep track of all of the kids every year but…it was horrible. After awhile, their faces all just started to blend together until I couldn't remember who was who. I wanted to be the person to remember those kids, but I just couldn't". He flicked a strand of hair out of his hair, pretending to be involved with something else. "I was wrong before. My greatest fear really isn't dying. Its dying and being forgotten".

Tristan nodded. "I see why your scared no-

"I'm going to sleep", Travis said suddenly.

Tristan and Peter both stared blankly. For somebody who had started off the day with a pissy attitude on every occasion possible, their little game of truth and dare had seemed to have changed something in their friend. Whatever it was, Travis was obviously thinking about something that nobody else needed to think about but him. Using his arms as a pillow, he stretched like a cat before closing his eyes as he rested against the shed.

"I'm going to sleep, too".

"It's only 6:45", Peter reminded him.

"The less time I have to spend on this island the better. If this is going to be one of the last times I fall asleep, I might as well enjoy it".

As Tristan settled himself in against the shed, Peter simply shrugged and carefully placed his wig back onto his head. The sun had finally set, and now, the first night of the program was dawning. As the darkness began to settle in, he couldn't help but think about it: _dying._

In general, he wasn't scared of dying. Although he was a Christian turned Atheist, rotting in the ground didn't frighten him at all. What really troubled him was his own gravestone chipping away in the wind until there was nothing and nobody left to ever know he existed.

Cross-dressing had been his way of switching his life around in a complete full swing that had a chance of making him happy. Unfortunately, all it had done was trouble him even more. His classmates idolized him and looked up to him, seeing him as somebody who bullets would bounce off, but in the end, Peter saw himself lower than them. They, for the most part, were happy. No matter what happened, for some reason, Peter just couldn't become happy with the idea of being forgotten looming over his entire life.

And that was why he was better of giving his own life for everyone else. It gave him a sense of accomplishment, pride, and most of all, dignity. When they were all speeding away from the island in a motorboat, they definitely wouldn't forget the boy who had given up his own collar to save their hides.

As the night dawned in, Peter reached into his purse and lit another cigarette.

* * *

"Attention all players in Sector C2", the pleasant computerized voice blared through the barn. "The area will become a Danger Zone in exactly five minutes. If you do not leave, your collar will detonate instantly. Thank you and enjoy the program".

"_Shit_", he thought.

Winston's head felt limp and deflated. The blood loss had obviously gotten to him and his once dark and square face now looked shapeless and white. His fingers had struggled to fold the cut on his throat but the only thing it had resulted in was excruciating pain that had made his skin feel like it flowing with burning acid.

However, as horrible as it was, he wasn't focused on the pain of his severed throat. Instead, he was thinking of something else. It wasn't Demi, who unknown to him was in a quite similar situation, or Mare, who had just taken more shots on Winston than she had expected to.

For the first time since the program began, instead of immersing himself in what was happening to Demi, Mare, or any of the other people he considered his, "friends", Winston was thinking for his own welfare. The phrase, "being hung out to dry", didn't have a meaning until you were laying on the floor of an approaching Danger Zone with your throat spilling out its contents all around you. Although it was much more than that, he was alone.

And along with that, he didn't think there was any real way he would be able to get up.

First of all, unlike nearly all of his classmates, Winston wasn't a fighter. When somebody attacked him, even girls, he would simply take the abuse. If they didn't leave, Demi would show up. If not, well, he would simply lay there and wait for it to end. Although he was technically a sophomore, he was the only student in the entire school that had been beaten up by a middle schooler. Along with the fact that he couldn't fight, the fact that his neck had caused a pool of blood to form around him didn't make it any better.

"Four minutes remaining".

"_Help_!" Winston rasped.

Of course, nobody was around to hear him. His time was ticking. It just didn't make sense. Almost always, somebody had been there to help him. Winston had only fought once in the program, and that was to protect a friend. When that was in the picture, the entire prospect changed. But this wasn't saving a friend. This was saving himself, for the first time in his life.

He forced himself onto his knees, struggling to shake off the dizziness. It felt like a weight in his head had heaved downward, begging him to come back to the ground. He didn't, though. One solid foot on the floor led to another and, struggling to balance himself out, Winston found that he was standing.

Mare had left him with a chance to survive. Now it was time to take it.

"Three minutes remaining".

Gurgling and holding his throat in like a piñata, Winston began to shamble out of the barn. However, he was met with the shocked expression of Perry Rumbaugh, formally Girl #15, staring at him as she hung from the rafters of the barn. He was going the wrong way. He moaned, and when he opened his mouth, the wound on his throat burst open like a cyst and sputtered out blood. He gurgled, but for some reason, he couldn't scream. After this, if he even made it through, the chances of him talking again were slim.

"Two minutes remaining".

Spinning around, Winston forced himself to walk faster, still holding in the blood that was effusing out of his neck. The front door of the barn was wide open in front of him, and outside, the sun was setting. It was the kind of thing he and Demi would sit talking about for hours. When he thought about that, he started walking even faster into a lopsided run. Suddenly, he realized why his face was aching so much; he had forgotten about how Mare had dug her black nails into it.

"One minute remaining".

Finally, resting against the doorway, Winston Van Buren (Boy #19) made it outside the barn that had housed the deaths of June, Leana, Perry, and nearly himself as well. However, instead of the empty slab of concrete that served as a door mat, he was met with something else.

Mare Ewing (Girl #3) was slumped against the decaying wall of the barn.

A lake of blood had formed in her mouth, seeping and trickling out like a water fountain. Below her broken mouth, a stray tooth had been indented sharply into her lower lip. For just a second, Winston thought that Mare finally had a reason to never care again. However, that was before he saw the red light blinking softly on her collar, corresponding her with heartbeat. Like Winston, she was alive, but barely. Winston's experience in the program so far had already taught him that everyone reacted to violence in a different way. Some fought, some stood on the side in fear, some gave up, and some refused to fight altogether. Mare had attempted to slit his throat, brutally kill him, and along with that, had insulted him on more than one occasion. He pictured Demi in his mind, ranting about how, "everybody is a good person", but now, looking at Mare, he was actually having second thoughts. It was truly the first time he had ever considered somebody who didn't deserve to live.

"Ten seconds remaining. Prepare for immediate elimination".

But unfortunately, Winston was a sentimental teddy bear who couldn't hurt a fly, or even for that matter, watch a fly get hurt. Feeling the clock ticking, he swung Mare over his shoulder with ease and dashed out across the meadow. His feet pounded as his neck pumped the blood out, but still, he didn't let Mare fall. Her spiky hair, styled with gel, beat against his back as he dashed toward the woods on the other side of the meadow. Thirty feet. Twenty feet. Ten feet. Three more good steps and they would be there.

Moaning, Winston let himself fall to the ground as they reached the trees. Mare' s sleeping body toppled off his shoulders, falling roughly against a tree trunk as she mumbled something. Once again, his throat let out another downpour of blood, ripping open another strand of his throat like tissue paper. His head would explode; he was almost sure of it.

But it didn't. Instead, Winston lay on the ground, struggling to breathe through the blood as he contemplated what he had just done: risking his own life to save the life of a girl that had attempted to slaughter him. In Mare's limp hand, several of the files were still hanging loosely. A few of them had been lost during the sprint for their lives, but most of them were still there. Roxy's. Demi's. Chris's. Mitch's. Amber's. Terry's.

"_I just need one more day_", Winston prayed to himself. "_Please, just one more. Give me another hour and I'll make sure I find her_".

Nobody, neither God or Demi, answered.He crumbled the files in his hand, feeling his already sweat-stained shirt begin to become completely drenched with dark and warm blood. Several of the files were lost from his grip, ripping and tearing in the wind as they scattered across the forest ground, some of them blowing into the sector that was now a Danger Zone. Those were the lucky ones; the one's whose secrets, hopes, and dreams would never be read on paper. Letting himself fill with rage, the kind that nobody ever would have imagined from a gentle giant like Winston Van Buren (Boy #19) he swung his head into the air as he gave a primitive roar across the island.

"_DEEEEEEEEMMMIIIIII_!"

His breath was cut short as the fire in his neck built up again, preventing him from yelling. Having no choice, he knelt down, made sure Mare's head was comfortable, and walked on. However, before he did, he doubled back quickly and removed her tooth that had become trapped in her mangled lip.

"Please don't wake up, Mare".

Although it sounded cliché, Winston Van Buren (Boy #19) was, "too nice for his own good". He just hoped it would help him last one more day

* * *

"Let's see…Aspirin…Cough syrup…

Rory North (Boy #13) moaned in agony as he lay on the foul-smelling cot. As far as he was concerned, every inch of his body was on fire. His throat felt like somebody had poisoned it with lead, and now, every inch of his entire body was beginning to sweat. His skull beanie was hanging loosely off his head, soaked wet.

After he had collapsed a second time, the dead weight to Rory that everybody called Roxy Patterson (Girl #12) had taken him to an isolated shack. Although he wasn't sure exactly which sector he was in, there was a large pink mansion looming directly outside like a medieval castle. For a second they had thought that they were the first in the entire program to ever venture into this sector, but that was before they'd seen the corpse of Enrique Martinez laying outside, his gray brain matter dripping out of his ruined skull. To Roxy, this was a bad omen. To Rory, it was a good sign.

He was ready to die.

For somebody who was an outsider like Rory, somebody who lived off prescriptions and HIV medications like a vulture, preparing to die was only part of life. Joining the program had only sped the process along for the drug junkie, and now, Roxy was standing in his path for the sole reason of trying to do, "a good thing". He had decided very early on that he would pay to see the drama club girl crucified. However, maybe he was just thinking that. For all he knew, the heat of the cold could have been driving him insane.

"There's no AZT in the cabinet, Rory", Roxy sighed. "I'm sorry. I'll have to think of something else".

She sat down in the chair in the corner, placing her hand in her face in deep thought. Rory shuffled in agony on the bed, twitching like a spider that had just met rain for the first time. Finally, moving his aching head, he was able to glance at the girl that was trying to save him against his wishes.

"G-G-G-G-Go".

"I'm not leaving you, Rory!"

"B-b-b-bitch…"

"You can call me anything you want, but it won't change the fact that I'm not leaving you until our collars are counting down. I care about you".

"No you d-d-d-don't".

Although he had only said it as a defense to make her back off, it had seemed to trigger something inside of her. First, her lip quivered slightly, almost in a silent whimper. In general, she was an average-looking girl. With a pageboy black haircut, light blue eyes, and bleak choice in fashion, Rory guessed she was a virgin. However, that definitely wasn't what she was thinking about. Clenching her fists, Roxy Patterson (Girl #12), drama club geek, did something that nobody in the entire grade had ever expected from her.

She lost it.

Screaming in fury, she knocked her elbow raggedly into the medicine cabinet, spilling out vials of pills and creams that clattered to the floor like tic-tacs out of a gumball machine. The wood rebounded her blow, sending chips of wood and splinters into her pale hand.

"It's no use, Rory!" she wailed, her face red like a tomato. "I thought caring for you would make me actually care about something. I didn't want anything to do with you dying! I spent so much time pretending to be different people in all of those fucking plays that I lost touch with who I really was! I thought if I cared about you, It would help me become somebody! But I'm not anybody! Want to know why?" Tears streamed from her eyes. "_My character is a piece of shit_!'

With that, she collapsed beside Rory's bed, sobbing like a kindergartner. Rory, however, wasn't thinking about her. His head was occupied with a single thought that had dawned on him ever since he had joined up with Roxy, who cared too much about herself and her own personal issues to bother with anybody else, and the moment he had become ill.

He had to get out.

Whether it was death or escaping from Roxy, he had to be alone. It was all a pattern that his entire life had followed like clockwork. He had been born into the social ladder at school as an outsider, preferring to smoke dope in his room instead of talking to actual people, and he knew he would die as an outsider. In Zane's gang, he had been a reluctant tagalong that had been proud to be reluctant. It was just who he was; it was just what the pattern was.

_Prescriptions. At home. Bags and bags of all of it. Needles. Prescriptions. At home-_

The pattern continued. Rory was ready to die.

* * *

At 6:55 PM, as the nineteenth hour of the program began to dawn in the night, a boy with auburn hair and a collared shirt walked alongside the forest. He hadn't checked his map in hours, but his memory was almost photogenic. A map of the island played out in his head, shading and unshading the areas that would detonate his collar in a second. Because of this, he knew his feet were only yards away from a recent Danger Zone.

Suddenly, in front of him, he made out the figure of a girl with liberty-spiked hair laying on the ground like she was simply taking a nap. However, there was more to it than that. Her entire mouth was uneven, almost like somebody had sent a bowling balls sprawling right into it. Her entire front down to her blouse was soaked with blood, but, like always, the boy didn't see any reason to care about Mare Ewing (Girl #3), or anybody for that matter. Several pieces of paper were cluttering in the wind around her, either caught in bushes or laying alongside her unconcious body. Ripped and tattered staple holes on each one showed they had all been clipped together in a giant packet.

"Well, well, well, what's this?'

Gathering up the packet of files across the small clearing, Jude Mercedes (Boy #11) began to read.

* * *

**No Students Eliminated**

* * *

**30 Students Remaining**


	21. Day 1: Hour 19: 30 Students Remaining

Rory now knew what hell was like.

It was dark, it was in a shed filled with medicine, it was hot, and most of all, Roxy Patterson (Girl #12) was the Queen. She had completely buried herself in hope for his survival, determined to pop him pills until he either died or turned into a vegetable. It wasn't that she was a selfish person; she was just so confidant on saving him that she wasn't respecting his own wishes. It was just a girl that wanted to prove she was worth something before she died. He sympathized with her, he even couldn't bring himself to hate her, but still, he needed to get out.

_Now._

The whole competition itself was just a trivial thing. Fifteen thousand schools. Forty-two two students. One survivor. They were all just easily replaceable things. America, once publicized as the country of love and harmony, had become emotionally dellusioned without even realizing it. Love was gone and replaced with books and books of new marriage laws. For the people who knew Rory North (and they didn't even know him well to begin with) they would have never guessed that he considered himself a pacifist as well as an outsider.

If there was one thing he couldn't stand, it was people who just pretended everything was fine. It wasn't. That was one of the core reasons he had joined Zane's gang in the first place. He had always had a dissatisfaction with the country, even before the Republic of Greater East Asia had taken their movie. Almost before any of his classmates did, the Battle Royale had become common knowledge to him. It had started in Japan, shortly after their victory in World War Two, and spread like a cancer. After enlisting Britain with the law and probably finishing off thousands of schoolboys, it had traveled to Brazil, Australia, and finally, the biggest step of all: the U.S.A.

He had seen it coming from a mile away, but then again, he decided it was best to not stand in the way of a wave when it was coming. Isolating himself even more, he just continued to walk through life dissatisfied. He would smoke, he would inject, he would snort, and aside from the drugs and the disease that they had given him, he would even vandalize with Zane's group. Then again, when he took part in their games, it was always a call for peace. It was never violence; Rory didn't do violence.

Between his HIV, the country, and his own emotions, high school had been rough. His classmates quickly learned not to approach him, seeing he was better off on his own. After all, he had seen the fall of the country alone, he had gotten that damn disease from those needles alone, so he might as well die alone too. He didn't need any of them; not even his own friends. It was just best to die alone in dignity then die by association. It wasn't that he didn't care about the others on the island. Truth to be told, he would pray for them before it was his time to be finished off. He just didn't mix well with anyone else, and that was final.

Rory put one foot off the sweaty cot.

It hurt, but even though he would go down, he wouldn't suffer in a sweltering room with a drama club freak popping pills and spooning him like a baby. He would go out in dignity. Whether it was an exploding collar or a gunshot to the heart, he would make sure his death would be quick, painless, and going out with a bang. Shaking another foot off, he steadied himself off, feeling his head shift like a jug of burning water in his head.

Stumbling, and feeling like he was walking inside an oven, Rory took a few steps. His feet felt feather-light, throwing him off-balance, but he still managed to keep himself steady. To the side, Roxy's head was buried in the medicine cabinet, searching for some type of aspirin and humming some Broadway hit to herself. Cringing and feeling like a hammer was being jammed into his skull, Rory continued to walk. One more step and he would be at the door.

"_I'll walk into a Danger Zone_", Rory's mind raced. "_Or off a building. Or run into the water. I just half to get the hell out of here_".

It was all just part of a pattern that would be fulfilled when he died. Rory wasn't religious; he'd basically been too scared to really believe in anything. Living life as an outsider, knowing your time was ticking away, the only suitable option in the program was to become a red shirt that nobody would remember. That was the one part of dying that frightened him, because in the end, Rory honestly enjoyed life. It was over too fast, so in the end, you might as well make the most of it while you're still around. Even if his life sucked, it was life. You couldn't waste something like that. He wondered if he'd used his time wisely.

"Rory? What are you doing?"

He felt his arm thud like a drumbeat. Roxy had emerged from the medicine cabinet, and in shock, dropped two vials of what appeared to be painkillers. The pills clattered on the floor like a broken gumballs, the worst song that Rory's ears could have heard. Roxy's normally spaced-out expression, only changing when she was performing in a play, now looked like she had just seen a ghost.

"Are…Are you trying to leave me?"

"_Leave me alone_!"

He tried to walk faster, but in an instant, she had grabbed his arm. Her eyes looked hurt, but past that, they were almost menacing. It was almost like she was threatening him not to leave.

"Please Rory!" she protested. "Don't leave! I need to take care of you!"

"Y-Y-You don't care about me at a-a-all", Rory choked out. "You j-j-j-just want to feel b-b-b-better about yourself".

With his body feeling like it had been submerged in burning acid, Rory shoved Roxy to the ground and somehow worked up the strength to start running. In just a few moments, she was hot on his tail.

* * *

Lea Passington (Girl #11) didn't consider being kidnapped by the Mercedes girls a disadvantage. At first she had been raging in fury as they apprehended her, desperate to escape, but as they carried her away, her anger had melted into mild dissatisfaction. The way she figured it, it was just an inconvenience that would quickly fade away.

"Lea, could I ask you a few questions?"

Lea growled as she glanced up. Prudence was sitting in the chair across from her backwards, her arms folded on the top as she looked at her. Sadie was leaning against the kitchen counter, drumming her fingers as she looked at the scene in front of her with an anxious face. Lea's weapons, the handsaw, the scissors, and most fondly, the golf club were lying in the corner in a heap of metal.

After wandering in circles for what seemed like forever, Prudence had finally settled on a rectangular building several feet out of the woods. Holding her in a headlock as they walked inside, Lea had been surprised to see that they had stumbled into perhaps the only restaurant, or place to eat out for that matter, in Cuna Cielo. It had the appearance of a 50's diner, even complete with an old-fashioned jukebox that looked like it had been bought at an antique show. The flickering neon sign outside the restaurant had said, "Maurey's Diner".

Now, bemused and sitting on a stool in the kitchen, Lea glared at Prudence. "Shoot".

In the next room, the jukebox was playing the soft and somewhat depressing tune by the Beatles, "While My Guitar Gently Weeps". Sadie drummed her fingers on the counter to the slow beat. Lea guessed she wasn't too happy about having a deranged killer several feet away from her.

"After you kill all of these people", Prudence sighed. "How do you just keep going on with yourself? You realize you ruined somebody's life right? In fact, if we didn't stop you, you probably would have ruined even more!"

"_I look at the world and notice its turnin'_", Lea sang softly. "Well, what's wrong with killing, Prudence? Everyone has their reasons".

"I take it that you're not going to tell us your reasons?"

Lea shrugged. "My reasons are simple. There's so many different religions. They're all so different and they invest people into doing different things. I've tried to believe something, but none of it makes sense. The only thing that they all had in common was the idea of people making things up about death because they were scared of it. Heaven isn't real. The afterlife isn't real. There's nothing waiting there but a dark room where you'll never have another thought. I don't want to believe that. Along with all that, it all boils down to the same thing as everyone else: I'd prefer not to die.

"So you're a religious killer? How more cliché can you get?"

"No. I'm the opposite. I'm killing to find a religion".

Prudence growled. "You're a bitch. That's all you are. How does any of this give you a reason to kill people?"

"I told you. I'm just trying to find something that makes sense. Everybody here has a reason that they shouldn't live. They all died, or are going to die, for a reason. You Prudence, for example, take our your anger on other people because you're insecure and don't know how to care about other people. You Sadie, try to impress people too much and just blame yourself when it backfires. You're all horrible, horrible people. You've all done horrible, horrible things to me and everyone else you saw below you. I don't know what my religion is, or even if I should believe in it, but whatever it is, according to it, I would make it so both of you would rot in Hell".

Sadie stared from the counter. "So is that where Meyerhold and Enrique are? Hell".

"No. They're in the dark room. They're never going to get out either".

"Lea" Prudence snarled. "Do you realize what you're saying makes no goddamned sense at all?"

Lea bit her lip. It was apparent she was in deep thought. Living life as an outsider had given her a strong sense of self-justice, making it so she was only right, but those views didn't last long in the real world. They were always put down by the people that thought they were better; the people who, in around forty-two hours, would all be dead.

"I don't know, Prudence", Lea sighed. "All I know is that I'm not leaving this island in a body bag. I'm not giving up anything I believe in just because you say so. What I say is right and that's the end of it. You've all let the world brainwash you; you're all dead on the inside. You're just weeds that have to be replanted. I'm sticking to that".

"That's only because you're too scared to believe in anything _else_!" Prudence roared.

"I hate to say it", Sadie sighed. "But she's not bad at figuring people out".

"Thanks", Lea said awkwardly. It was the first time she'd ever received a compliment from anyone, nonetheless somebody from her class. It could've have been an accomplishment if it wasn't so pathetic.

"I just have one question though", Prudence said suddenly. "If I gave you this gun, would you kill _us_?"

Lea stared at the M16, once belonging to a girl that was now dangling from a barn's rafters, in Prudence's hand. It was gripped tightly, but if she was quick enough, it would be an easy grab that would massacre both of the Mercedes girls. Then again, Prudence, staring at her like a vulture, probably expected this a mile away. She had asked a question and, unfortunately, Lea was inclined to answer. Never relating well with the other kids, or other people in general, she frowned and wondered what animal preyed on vultures.

"You're a dyke, you know that Prudence? That's what everyone says about you at school".

"You'd probably cry if I told you what everyone says about you", Prudence said with a grin "Now, answer the question".

Lea grinned back. "Of course. I'd kill you both with my bare hands".

With neither Sadie or Prudence surprised, Lea closed her eyes, reminded herself that , and continued the jukebox song with her small and grim voice:

_"I look at you all. Still my guitar gently weeps. Oh…Oh…Ohhh…"_

* * *

_Every neighborhood had its legendary place that nobody dared to venture to. It may be because it was haunted, maybe because it was rumored to be the sight of a mass murder, or probably just because being in the place gave you the creeps. Every town in the world had a place like this, and for Spanish Rivers, Oklahoma, it only went by one name:_

"_Albi's Den," Skylar spoke aloud to the video camera in his head. "Off the backroads from the highway, a mile up the Pequeno Mountains, and finally, a plummet straight to the bottom of the darkest layer of hell. Will we escape?"_

_"Would you stop that?" Jesse snapped. "This is freekin' weird enough as it is"._

_Skylar nudged his girlfriend playfully in the backseat of J.C's grandmother's beaten-up and still durable Acura Legend. Being a fan of the 80's, nobody had been able to convince the elderly woman to get rid of the damn car when she became ridden to her wheelchair. Being the kind of person who she was, her granddaughter had nabbed it without a second thought. Nobody seemed to care that J.C didn't even have a license, and if she did, it probably would have been confiscated during her first ride._

_Due to the cramped nature of the car, Jesse and Skylar had piled into the incredibly small backseat, giving J.C the wheel and Zane the passenger seat. Not wanting her grandma to find that her entire car smelled like cigarettes or god knows what else he would bring on the ride, they had only come up with one suitable solution for where to put Rory._

"_How are you holding up back there, man?" Zane laughed._

_Rory struggled to say something from the trunk, but his voice was muffled by the aged seats. J.C had explained that the trunk was safe, although she hadn't told them it would occasionally pop open during the ride until they were out on the highway. Still, although he had protested quite a bit, Rory had been a good sport about it._

"_No cops were on the road", Jesse said bemused. "Do you think they were on to us or something?"_

"_No way", Skylar said, "No cop would come to Albi's if his career depended on it. The entire thing is chained up like a zoo. I don't think they'd even find a legal way of getting in there"._

"_Good thing we brought rope then"._

_Albi's Den, often simply called Albi's by the teenagers of Spanish Rivers, was true to Skylar's words at being, "a plummet straight to the darkest layer of hell". The entire complex itself was an abandoned neighborhood in the mountains, covered in graffiti and barbwire. It had once been highly inhabitable, but for an unknown reason, people had just decided to clear out one day. With the population gone, the neighborhood had fell apart, becoming a frequent sight of teenage vandalism. However, that wasn't half the reason Zane's gang had decided to drive up there that Friday night. Rumors had spread of flesh-eating tribes of albinos that lived in the area, feeding on hikers or bikers that passed through at unlucky. They made their own laws and lived their own lives, and almost never left their cozy little huts. There was supposed to be a whole colony of them out there, just living their lives oblivious to society._

_And with the mention of possible danger, the five deliquents had jumped at the chance of visiting the place._

"_We're almost there", J.C pointed out. "Two more minutes top"._

_Her face was sheepish and worried, and any minute, Zane knew a regular stream of complaints were going to come out of her whiny little mouth. Deciding to put out the fire before it started, he forced a smile._

"_Are you scared, J.C?"_

"_This is too weird, Zane. We've done stuff like this before, but going to Albi's is different. There's something that's not right about this place. I'm scared. What if they come outside and chase us?"_

_Smirking, he placed his arm around his girlfriend's shoulder. "Would I let them eat you?"_

_She giggled, and even though she was still driving, she nuzzled her head against her boyfriend. It was a weird relationship from any onlookers, the school criminal and the spoiled ad equally tough brat, but they were strangely suited for eachother. Zane acted as somewhat of J.C's protector while she, aside from acting as another one of his lackeys, was also one of the only people, although he would never admit it, cared for. Even if she was manipulative and roped him into doing things for her, he was nontheless, her best friend. Skylar and Jesse meanwhile, were almost like the same body and mind. The fact that they had been voted best couple in their middle school yearbook only reinforced this._

_After merely half a minute, the winding mountain road gave way to a bridged tunnel covered in age-old graffiti. Various gang symbols covered the entire thing, but the most prominent one, standing out in blood red paint, was the word, "Albi's", with an arrow pointing under the tunnel. _

"_What are you waiting for?" Zane snapped. "Park it"._

"_Wait, we're getting out of the car?" J.C said in alarm._

"_Hell yeah we're getting out of the car", Zane said. Unbuckling his seatbelt, he kicked the door roughly with his feet, jamming it open with a soft hiss. "Why do you think we brought the rope? We're getting in there and blowing this place sky high"._

_He hopped out of the slowly moving vehicle, landing on his feet like a cat. Out of everyone there, Zane was afraid of the cops coming the least. Beside the fact that his father was the police chief of the entire county, usually able to bail him out of whatever he did, he just loved being in the face of danger. Growing up in a house where the government and authority was almost always right, it was great having a chance for freedom like this. Looking back at the car, Skylar and Jesse piled out of the backseat as J.C, hugging herself, walked up from the driver's side._

"_Any of you ever watch a slasher movie?" Jesse asked, hooked around Skylar's waist._

"_What?"  
_

"_You know, the movies where a bunch of gullible teenagers get hacked to bits one by one by the chainsaw-wielding killer, but the lead girl gets away covered in blood?"_

"_That's disgusting", J.C snapped. " Why would you even mention something like that?"_

"_Well, this looks like the place for one of them to happen. I mean, check it out"._

_The four stared out through the tunnel. Run-down cottages loomed down at them from the side of the dirt road, hidden by thorny trees or broken and tattered porches. There was more than enough graffiti to paint L.A. Zane frowned. He wondered if there would be any spots left for him to tag._

_However, in front of the entire place and at the end of the tunnel was a rusted metal fence that circled the entire lot. "Danger", and, "Keep Out: Trespassers Will be Shot", signs covered the entire area, just begging them to attempt to break in even more than they already wanted to. With the rope that they had brought, and careful climbing, getting over the fence would be a breeze._

"_This is creepy as hell", J.C sighed. "Why did you guys drag me up here?"_

"_Because you're an idiot", Skylar replied calmly. "The pretty, stupid ones always die first. And you have a car"._

_She frowned. "Do you watch these movies too?"_

"_You should stop by Jesse's house sometime. She had a whole glass cabinet with all of them alphabetized. It's like a gore library or something. We stayed up for two days straight watching all of them once. They're all kind of the same when you think about it. Horror movies are really just all from the idea that people are scared of things they don't have control of"._

"_Screw movies", Zane said. "Let's get this thing going"._

"_Yeah, let's start getting stuff out of the trunk the cannibals find us", Jesse said grinning. "You kept all of the beer in the cooler, right Zan—AUGGHH!"_

_The moment she opened the trunk, Rory swung out like he'd been trapped underwater. His normally pale face was red and exhausted, and it looked like he had breathed up all of the air he could find in the trunk. They all started laughing, and Jesse, having no other choice and still clutching her heart, was forced to join in._

"_Sorry man", Zane laughed. "We almost forgot about you"._

_Rolling his eyes, Rory didn't say anything as he hopped out of the trunk with a cooler of beer clutched in his hands. Jesse quickly pulled out a bundle of thorny rope, a box of fireworks, several cans of spray paint, and finally, the one thing that guaranteed breaking into Albi's a simple task._

_Skylar's eyes opened wide. "Way to go. Looks like we won't need the rope after all"._

"_I stole it from my dad's workshop", Jesse said grinning. " I wanted it to be a surprise"._

"_Toss it over here", Zane called. "I'm doing the honors"_

_With Skylar instantly pressing the record button on his camera, and Zane ripping the red Morrison chainsaw from Jesse's hands, the four of them watched their leader scream a war cry as he dashed toward the tunnel. Although it was obviously heavy, the desire to have a good time had seemed to have taken over him. The moment he reached halfway down the tunnel, he pulled the cord, spewing the motor to life as the saw screeched into the night. He threw it roughly into the rusted fence with all of his might, sending sparks and scrap metal flying into the air. However, he didn't stop there. Within seconds, he had cut a clear pathway through the fence for them to get to Albi's._

"_Remember when I said, "chainsaw-wielding killers?" Skylar called out._

_Flipping his friend the middle finger, he watched as all four of the others quickly hurry in with the spray paint, cooler filled with beer, box of fireworks, and the now useless rope. Zane Barrens. Leader. Criminal. Chainsaw-wielding killer. He hated to say that he liked it. _

_And as he walked in, swaying the chainsaw in his hand, the next three hours were history._

_As Skylar, refusing to drink due to his role on the basketball team, walked around and taped the cottages with his video camera, the others had gathered around a fire pit off the center of the dirt road and had begun to drink. After polishing down half of their supply, J.C had seemed to have forgotten about the place they were in and now seemed to be too intoxicated to get up. She was laughing hysterically on the ground, almost talking to herself. Rory kept to himself, smoking as he stared at the sky. Jesse, wanting to set an example for the others and an image for her boyfriend, had only had one beer and claimed it was enough._

_Spraying a tree with the initials ZB, Zane colored it in with an even blue shade. It was a great night; one of the best nights of his life. He would intend to keep it that way. There was a strange sense of power knowing you could boss around your friends, decide where to go and what to do, and it had given him all of the independence and strength he needed. _

_As Zane began to outline it in a crisp and charred black, Skylar came rushing over with the video camera._

"_I got some great shots of the cottages", Skylar said. "It's spooky around here. You almost think you're being watched or something. I didn't see any cannibals or anything though. I'm pretty sure its just an urban legend or something". He glanced over at the campfire. "J.C got drunk?"_

"_I'd be surprised if she could stand up. Want to light them off now?"_

_He didn't even need to say yes. Without an opinion from the others, Zane rushed over and emptied the box of fireworks like a toddler opening Christmas presents. Quickly snatching the box of matches that they had hidden inside, he grabbed the Dynamite-branded firework; it was shaped like a rubber duck with a fuse attached to its tail. It was bright, loud, and most of all, terrifying. Perfect._

_Putting the match at the end of the striker, he scratched it roughly and stared at the fire at the end of the small stick. Then, laughing like a hyena, he lit the duck and tossed it into the air._

"_COME OUT ALBINOS!"_

_THUD!_

"_Jesus, Zane!'_

_The sound was like a gun silencer in the sky. His eardrums felt like they had been pummeled as the lights flashed in the sky, burning his eyes. The blue sparks fizzled and blew in the sky for several seconds before simmering and beginning to drop. _

_The moment the sparks vanished, everybody in the group began laughing and cheering. It could have been from the hype of what was going on or intoxicating beverages, but it was more for just the hell of it. They were friends. They had broken into Albi's Den and lit the entire sky up with fireworks. If they didn't deserve gold medals for their endeavors, they at least enjoyed a laugh._

"_Want to say something to the camera, Jesse?" Skylar asked smiling, raising his camcorder toward his girlfriend._

_Jesse giggled. "I-_

"_Who are you people?" a voice roared. "What are you doing here?"_

_Every laugh was immeadidly cut. Zane swore he felt himself jump out of his skin as he saw the man with a baseball bat rush out of the cottage. He was wearing what appeared to be rags, though the fact that he was wearing a fancy fedora, the kind a mobster would wear, made it even more unsettling. As he neared them, Zane could see that his skin was also surprisingly pale and his hair was stark white; a perfect description of the supposed tribe of albinos that supposedly lived in their mountains._

"_He's going to eat us!" J.C slurred. "E-E-E-Eat us up! Hahahaha!"_

_Jesse had backed herself up behind Skylar who was holding his shaking camcorder at the man, cowering in fear. Rory eyed the man without any interest and just continued to keep smoking his cigarette like he hadn't just broken into a fenced trespassing sight, defaced an entire abandoned village, and then discover that the residents were very much alive._

_The man's white face was almost expressionless. If it wasn't his pasty skin, the one shocking detail about him was the rag he was wearing. Somehow, with either charcoal or pastel, somebody had completely painted a mural of the tunnel they had all walked through on the man's shirt. It was almost like wearing a Michaelangelo painting as a shirt; even the graffiti that said Albi's Den was there. Although it really didn't make any sense, Zane quickly named the man Albi to make the situation a little better. It didn't help._

"_We- _

"_You've defaced our trees", Albi said. "We've been watching your friend trespassing on our homes, recording it for amusement. You've polluted our air. You've sent light into our skies. You've even tore down our fence with that awful machine". He glanced in disgust at J.C. "And you've let your woman make a pig of herself and pollute her body on our land"._

_Zane glanced down at his girlfriend. She was still laughing hysterically, rolled over against the log with the can of beer held loosely in her hand. What had started out as a night to simply be a teenager had turned into what was slowly becoming the most hellish time of his life. For once, somebody who considered himself a natural born leader was completely powerless to do anything. Damn, really, where the hell had he put that chainsaw?_

"_You people come up here with no consideration for anyone else but yourself", Albi continued. "All you care about is building and building and taking away things that are rightfully ours. We don't harass you. Why do you continue to harass us?"_

"_I…I…don't know", Zane stammered._

_Seeing their leader was powerless, everyone turned to Jesse, the speaker and plan-maker of the group. Her face was terrified, but behind that, her mind appeared to be working. Slowly, she began to walk out from behind Skylar, gaining confidence in herself. From behind them, Rory was still staring at the sky like they weren't being threatened._

"_We thought this place was abandoned", Jesse began. "We just came here to have a good time. Please, we're just children. Really! We don't want to harm you or anyone else that might live here. We just came here to have a good time"._

"_Your idea of having a good time is horrible", Albi said. "And you're not children. You and the drunken pig on the ground are almost full-grown woman. The three others are almost men". _

_Skylar gulped. "We-_

"_Shut off that camera, boy"._

"_Are you going to eat us or not?" Rory said suddenly._

_Everybody was suddenly silent. Zane stared at the completely factual sketch of the tunnel on Albi's shirt; the place that he would probably never exit through again. All of their criminal partying and vandalism had always been something they had just done because they knew they wouldn't have gotten caught. Now, it was more than just getting caught. Staring at a mentally disturbed mountain man with a baseball bat, there was a good chance they would be killed._

"_We don't feed on flesh", Albi answered with a sigh. "When people are different, rumors spread. We just live out here and wouldn't like to be disturbed. Unfortunately, your kind doesn't heed our warnings"._

_Rory didn't break his glance. "What are you going to do to us?"_

"_According to our law, I should kill you. Because you're just brainless and spoiled urban children, I'll let you leave. I want you to turn over all evidence that you were here though". He eyed Skylar coldly. "To make myself clearer, I want that machine you used to record our village"._

"_But I worked at the supermarket for three years to afford this! I didn't stack all of those crates in the back for nothing. If you want, I can just delete the vid-_

"_Skylar, just give him the god damn video camera!" Zane screamed._

_The moment he had his hands on Skylar's, "machine", he threw it roughly against a rock around the fire pit, shattering it to pieces with a spark of electricity. Skylar whimpered softly, but now that he realized they were leaving, he had enough common sense to shut up. As Albi stared at the ruins of the video camera, never looking at them from under his fedora, he whispered softly:_

"_You can leave now"._

_Not wasting a second, the four took off toward the bridge, Jesse and Skylar both holding J.C who was still giggling and probably had no clue where they really were. Rory walked quietly behind them, throwing his cigarette to the ground and stepping on it. Nobody dared to go back and retrieve the cooler and chainsaw, and most of all, look back at Albi._

"_Thanks Rory", Jesse said. "If you didn't say anything, we probably would still be there"._

"_Are you kidding, Jesse?" Skylar laughed. "You're the one that gave him that whole speech. If you weren't so good at talking to people, he'd probably be eating us all on a shish kabob. We owe it all to you"._

"_Rory was so straight to the point though", Jesse admitted. "He just kept asking questions until we got out of there. He probably saved our lives"._

_Rory, immeadidly lighting another cigarette and trying to hold back a cough, merely smiled before staring back at the ground. They were nearing the tunneled bridge covered in graffiti and outside, the familiar headlights of J.C's grandma's car was greeting them._

"_God am I glad to see those lights", Zane sighed._

_Skylar stared. "J.C didn't leave the lights on when she got out of the car"._

"_Freeze!"_

_Before they could do anything, a swarm of police officers had dashed down the tunnel and surrounded them. Due to the alcohol only slightly wearing off, Zane wasn't aware of very much that happened after that. Apparently, they were being taken into custody for, "vandalism", "trespassing", "illegal use and possession of firearms", and (after the police officer sniffed the air), "underage drinking and smoking". Zane considered telling them about Albi, but considering how he felt about intruders and how they had trespassed to begin with, it really wasn't worth it._

"_I'm J.C Br-r-rooke" she choked in a slurred and drunk laugh as they were handcuffing her. "My grandma…my grandma is gonna' be so mad. She…She'll sue all a' ya'! Where…Where's my car? Z-Z-Zane?"_

_As they were all loaded into the police car one after another, all piled into the backseat, no one was really upset that they had all been arrested. On the other hand, they were just thankful to be alive. It was halfway onto the highway though when Skylar began laughing._

_Nobody knew exactly what he was laughing about or even if they wanted to join in, but in the end, they just ended up all cracking up together. It wasn't because it was funny, and it wasn't hysterical either. It was just a laugh of triumph. Who else could say they broke into Albi's Den, lit off a firework, met a disturbed local, and were arrested the moment they left with their friends? And friends. Zane didn't like the word, refusing to admit outloud that any of them were his friends, but in the back of his mind, he knew it was reason they were all laughing._

_They had never known who or what was really up there. They probably never would either. But they had all run to the car together…all of them…all five of them laughing…together…_

* * *

Zane Barrens (Boy #1) woke up panting in his prison of duct tape. He barely registered that his entire mouth was almost a cesspool of diseases and blood, and he was also vaguely aware that he had to vomit, but the nightmare would stay there forever. They had all been there. _J.C. Skylar. Jesse. Rory. _Two of them had died due to his own carelessness as a friend and somebody who had let all of their hope fall down. Their good times together, the few good times they had, were something to cherish. He would bring all of those memories to his death, but he knew thinking about any of them would make him sick. Maybe even sicker than he felt right there.

"Rise and shine, Zane. You overslept".

Zane moaned as he squinted at Chris kneeling above him. A sniper rifle, truthfully Zane's rifle, was clutched in his hands making him look like a general. Eddie was off in the distance of the campsite, drumming on his knees as he sat on a log, while Preston was strangely absent. He was probably off gathering more firewood or keeping lookout; he was probably terrified out of his mind too. Zane couldn't deny that he deserved elimination more than anyone. It was a grim reminder in his head that Chris, a brutal and sadistic leader, Eddie, a mindless follower, and Preston, a wimp who couldn't fight for himself, were all probably going to survive Day One.

"You were rocking around in your sleep and coughing", Chris said. "It was disgusting to look at. I was considering shooting you to end it all, but you're not worth a bullet. I hate to say it boy, but you got a good gun. You could probably shoot through an oak tree with this thing with enough pumps".

"Did you guys kidnap and torture anyone else?"

"No, we didn't. Do you know what my weapon is, Zane? I got a first-aid kit! Can you believe that? If Eddie gets shot in this competition, I'm not kneeling down, stitching his wounds, and kissing him to make him feel better. I'm bashing him in the head with my kit and putting a bullet in his skull. That goes even more for Preston; I hate that kid".

Zane groaned. "You hate everyone".

"Not necessarily", Chris explained. "You wouldn't believe it, Zane, but I can actually be pretty courteous. Did you know I waited for not just Eddie, but also Preston outside the school? If that doesn't show friendship, I don't know what does. Even if Eddie's a dumbass and Preston's a pussy, I still risked my life to wait for them".

"That's only because you're going to kill them when it comes down to the three of-

He let his speech stop abruptly. In the corner of Zane's eye, two people were running along the forest bed.

"What were you saying, Zane?'

"Nothing".

"Good. Keep it that way".

Zane bit his lip as he glanced at the two figures. One, A BOY, was almost limping, using all of his might to force himself forward. The one behind him, a girl by the looks of it, almost seemed to be chasing him, but she already seemed out of breath and was huffing like an elephant. Who was unathletic that had gotten on the bus? The girl was far too skinny to be Logan, Mae was dead, and Demi, well, Winston would follow her to the moon if he had to. The girl didn't seem to want to do any harm to the boy though; she almost seemed to be reaching out to him in a cry for help that he was flat-out refusing to give ehr.

"_Don't run here_", Zane's mind yelled. "_Make sure Chris doesn't see you guys! Please!"_

"What's wrong, Zane? See a raccoon or a cat or something? I've been wanting to test out this rifle and everyone here is a waste of ammo and space".

"No. I just sort of remembered something".

They had a close chance of being seen and a close chance of escaping this fate and being resigned to another, probably much more sane and dignified than the one they would get if Chris Barrister kidnapped them. They were just on the border of the forest, and all it would take was one more sprint to vanish from view. Although he had no clue why the girl was chasing the boy, he knew for certain that they were better off just getting the hell out of here.

And with that, the most unpleasant voice screeched into the air:

"_Chris!" _Eddie shrieked, pointing his stubby finger. _"People! People!"_

Not wasting a second, Chris rolled over like an army maneuver with the sniper rifle. His eyes searching like an eagle, they locked instantly on the running pair, who at the sound of a rifle being cocked, instantly stopped dead in their tracks. Now that they had rounded the corner around the bog and gotten closer, Zane noticed the girl had a pageboy haircut. It was the worst kind, at least in his opinion, a girl could get. The boy, meanwhile, had greasy hair hidden under a skater beanie.

"Identify yourselves!" Chris barked.

The girl squealed and began to back away, but the boy remained completely motionless. He answered in a voice that seemed like it took all of his energy to talk.

"Rory North and Roxy Patterson", he answered curtly. "Don't hesitate to shoot us, Chris".

For a second, Chris seemed slightly taken aback. Eddie, standing next to him, had almost dissolved into a hysteric laughing fit. From how screechy and unpleasant his voice was, Zane couldn't tell if he was in pain or pleasure.

"It's a girl, Chris!" Eddie yelled. "Hot damn, we got a _girl_!"

Chris rolled his eyes. "Shut up, Eddie!"

Just like he had repeatedly smacked Preston, Eddie received a heavy blow to the head that still didn't break his widespread smile. He merely staggered backwards onto the dirt, still giggling softly to himself. Chris brandished his fists defensively as he glared down at his, "friend". Zane remembered how he had often done the same thing to Skylar; his stomach started to feel even worse.

"If any girl comes here", Chris barked. "I'm getting first dibs. Now, where were we? Roxy? Hmm? You're that drama club chick right? Well, looking at the kind of clothes you wear, the way you cut your hair, and the fact that you're in the _drama club_, I'd bet you're a virgin. Is that right, Roxy? Are you a virgin?"

Roxy whimpered again. She didn't have any other choice but to nod, not knowing which answer would give her a better future. Rory, meanwhile, was regarding the situation without any interest, just like he did with almost everything. Zane remembered how he had identified Roxy and himself; he had never seen Rory say a sentence that long in his entire life.

"A virgin, huh? Well, I can't say that I'm happy. There's so many other girls that could have wandered in here, but we had to get you. Oh well. You have to make do with what you got, I guess. For now, I'm satisfied". He glanced at Rory with perhaps even less interest than the stoner himself. "Eddie, do we have any tape left?"

"No. We used it all up on Zane".

"Damn it. Well-

"I'm staying here", Rory said suddenly. "You don't have to chain me up, put up a fence, or anything else. I want to be here".

Everybody in the entire bog was silent. Even Eddie's vicious laugh was cut at Rory's words. At the most, Zane had considered Rory a tagalong. While he was an admitted member of their group, he had always been a reluctant outsider than had just seemed to latch onto the group because he didn't have anybody else. Just being around other people seemed to upset him; he was a loner with dignity. Whenever Zane would get into his violent arguments with Skylar, and occasionally J.C or Jesse, Rory would simply stand on the sideline, bemused at the carnage that was going on. He didn't seem to care about anything, even himself for that matter. Now, aside from looking dreadfully sick and pale, Rory had finally shown a sign of something working in his head beside a craving for smoking or injecting himself in his room. For once, Rory may have been thinking.

"I'm not giving up", Rory continued. "I'm giving in. There's a difference".

Cringing slightly, and with nobody trying to stop him, he began a slow and painful limp toward Zane. Crouching his stomach, but still forcing a short smile, let himself collapse into the dirt. Now that he was up close to him, Zane noticed that a trickle of blood was dripping from the corner of his mouth, almost like he had coughed it up. He was also shivering uncontrollably.

"Kill me any time you want, Chris. Some people just aren't cut out for killing people or even surviving. I don't know what made you do the things you're doing, and I don't know what made Preston and Eddie follow you, but I'm never going to be like you. I'm not cut out for this game; I'm dying whether you want to put a bullet through my skull or not".

Chris stared. "Um, okay…"

His face was red and embarrassed, and clearly, he hadn't expected one of his captives to actually want to be captive. The sniper rifle was held loosely at his side, making him look almost less powerful. Eddie, uncomfortable seeing his leader like this, directed his attention back toward their prize catch.

"Chris, the girl!"

Chris grinned. "Oh yeah! The little actress that wandered into our campsite! Hey Roxy!"

As Chris and Eddie quickly apprehended Roxy, pummeling her to the ground as she protested and screamed all the way (_"I was just trying to help! Stop!") _Zane managed to turn the throbbing sack of flesh that had once been his head and stare at Rory. Staring at the stars as he hugged his knees, it was strange, but the only word Zane could think of to describe him was, "impressive". It was weird and didn't fit the situation at al, but it was the only way to describe somebody who could simply sit down calmly when there was a rifle pointed openly at their head.

"Rory?'

Rory didn't smile. "Hello Zane".

"Do you think Chris and Eddie are really going to…"

"I think they just wanted to scare her so she'd be too shocked to run away. The odds are Chris is probably a virgin, too. He might beat the crap out of her, he might even kill her, but there's no way he would do that. He's not brave enough; all three of them are cowards".

Zane stared. "You're pretty casual with me now for somebody that thinks I'm a mass-murderer".

"What?'

"I killed Jesse and Skylar, remember?'

"J.C ran, so I ran too. I was thinking since the competition started; I just needed some time to think alone and get away from everyone else. I would ask what happened to you too, but considering that your entire face looks like someone put it in a blender, I'm not going to ask. Chris got you?" Zane nodded bitterly. "Well, that's okay. When they kill me, maybe it will give you enough time to escape".

"_What_?"

"Oh, didn't I mention?" Rory said. "I'm planning to let them kill me. That's what I've been thinking about".

"You're _nuts_!"

Rory frowned. "Let me-

"No! You're nuts!" Zane realized he was almost screaming, but he didn't care. After losing several of his teeth, probably catching several diseases from his wounds being overexposed, and generally being caught in a living hell since the game started, he knew he was a person qualified to be angry. "We spent our whole lives talking about how much we hated the government! After all of that, you're just going to give up and call it quits! What the _hell_ is wrong with you? If you die, the only ones left are J.C and me!"

"Well, then the only ones left are going to be J.C and you. Get used to it. I'm dying whether you like it or not". Rory paused. " While I'm here, I might as well tell you some information that's traveled around. Roxy told me that that Lea girl's playing the game. Watch out for her; Mae's death was early enough to be a freak accident or something, Skylar and Jesse offed themselves, but I think Lea must have caught Enrique. For everyone who died after that, like Risa or somebody, I think Lea definitely caught one of them. Whatever's going through her head, it's not good".

"I'll watch out".

"Good".

"But excuse me for saying so, but I'm still not too thrilled about having to watch one of my friends get their brains blown out!"

"Just close your eyes when it happens. Chris will do it eventually. All the power will go to his head, he'll see the need to make a point, and then _bam_! I'm gone".

"Is that what you want to die as? Just a point to make for Chris?"

"It's better than dying and not being remembered at all".

Zane stiffened. He looked over at Rory's face again, which now, even with a face that looked like a pumpkin left outside far past Halloween, still looked impressive. Zane wanted to touch his own face, wondering how bad it really was, but seeing how his arms were wrapped in a coat of duct tape, any efforts would be useless.

"Rory, I want you to know that no matter how bad I treated you, or J.C, or Skylar, or Jesse, you were all my friends. Maybe not my friends, but you were the closest thing I had to them. I just had to look impressive in front of somebody; I don't think it ever had a chance of working past the fact that you guys tried to not hate me. I mean, after all of the horrible things I did to all of you, how could you not hate me?'

Rory grinned. "It's like you said. None of us had anybody else".

It was the closest thing anyone from Zane's gang had ever given him close to a compliment. It was pathetic, suitable for Zane who felt like a sap from the sentimental speech he had just given, but it was pathetic in a good way. On a field trip to the capitol a long time ago, they (when all five had still been alive) had taken a firework and blown the head off a statue. It was their own underground and low way of getting back at the country, and for some reason, out of all the times he could've, Zane was remembering it now.

"Escape this place. Blow it to pieces. Find J.C. Stay together. If you have to die, go out the way you want to".

For the first time in his life, Zane had virtually no comeback. Several feet away, Roxy was sobbing into the dirt, clawing and biting as Eddie as he attempted to take off her shirt. Several feet away from there, Chris was holding his sniper rifle, trying his best to look intimidating. Several more feet away from there, Preston was in the forest, gathering firewood as he massaged the shallow slaps on his face.

And in the bushes, not too far off from where Zane and Rory had talked, a boy carrying a pistol had arrived fifteen minutes before. Although by medical terms he was, "mentally retarded", whatever that meant, he was smart enough to know that Chris was the worst of the lot out there. He wouldn't stand a chance against him, but it didn't matter. He was confused. When you were confused, you just yelled and screamed until the problem went away. If it didn't, you blew it to pieces.

Darren Warner (Boy #20), his gun still stained with the blood from Mare's gums, decided to sit down and wait. The game was just beginning, and when they turned their backs later in the night, it would be a perfect chance to make sure they all got, "died".

Because, perhaps more than anyone else, he simply wanted to go home.

* * *

Terry Klingerman (Girl #6) didn't consider herself a leader.

She related her life to those trivial and repetitive high school sitcoms she would watch on TV. There were the main characters, the highly paid actors, and in the background, there were extras that they just found off the street. They were the students who would just walk down the hallway, never becoming part of a scenario at all. Just faces, really.

That was what she wanted to be; something that nobody would look at and give a second thought.

It didn't matter what her classmates said her. She could have been a freak, a secluded basketcase, a self-mutilator, and even, as J.C had said, "a nutcase". She was all of those things, admittedly proud of it too, but she definitely wasn't a leader. It just wasn't something that a background extra like her was willing to do.

Still, as much as she hated to admit it, she had become the driving force of their trio.

Slouching against the counter of the small cottage, she stared at herself in the glass. After the massacre at the barn, Luke's confession, and wandering aimlessly for several hours, the three didn't have much of another place to spend the night other than the place that had been the final resting-place of their class president. Slouched beside the kitchen counter, Risa's corpse had began to loose its color from being motionless inside, and the once pretty complexion she had was drained from her face. Although Terry didn't want to look at it, half of her skin was gone too.

Terry stared into the window. Past the acne that she had gotten in the past several years and the knotted hair she hadn't bothered to comb, she wasn't a bad-looking girl: decent bone structure, pretty smile, nice eyes. However, beauty only blossomed if you took care of it and tamed it. In the past several years, Terry had completely let her life drop like a weight. It didn't matter. In the end, she had her reasons for letting herself become a mess of a life more than anybody.

"How many does that make?" Mitch asked.

Sitting against the counter, he was cringing as he treated the skin on his hand with ice. She had almost forgotten that a portion of the skin had been cut open by Risa's bullet, but considering how shallow it was, he was probably able to put up with it.

Terry paused for a second, calculating the question in her mind before she answered. "Twelve dead. Thirty to go".

"This is going slower than I thought. Luke fell asleep on the bed over there".

Terry nodded. After staring into space for awhile, thoughts probably running through his head, Luke had settled with the only suitable option of simply going to sleep to solve his problems. The worst part was that his sleep almost looked peaceful. It was almost sickening to watch.

Seeing the chance she had been waiting for, Terry shot Mitch a question when he was unprepared. "What's your favorite movie?"

Mitch groaned. "We did this before, remember?'

"Yeah, but you just made something up so you could get away with not telling me the truth. It's not that hard. Just pick out your favorite movie and tell me. I don't care what it is".

"Fine…I like war films I guess…I don't like the cliches though. I like the ones that have a point to prove in the end. Ever see Dr.Strangelove?'

"Bits and pieces". Terry said. "All I really know is that it's the movie where the guy is riding the missile into the ground". She glanced over at Luke sprawled on the bed, his face hidden as he curled up against the wall. She trusted him, just like she had forced herself to trust everyone else, but in general, he was a dead weight. She could respect him, kick her ass to feel sorry for him, even trust him, but there was no way she could build up any emotion toward him.

"Well", Mitch sighed. "I always walk out of movies like that feeling like I have to go out and do something important to help the world. I don't really think much past that, because soon, I just forget about the message and get wrapped up in something else. I like movies a lot though. Were you serious when you said the Shawshank Redemption earlier, or were you bullshitting?"

"I was honest", Terry replied. "I told you, I like stories about people escaping. It's just something I always wanted to do".

There was an awkward silence, only replaced by the occasional scream or unknown sound that echoed and faded outside. The night was on, and in the next six hours, the list of competitors would be reduced to practically half of its size. The numbers were steadily declining.

"I'm going to the bathroom, okay?"

Standing up, leaving Mitch to let his hand swell under the handmade ice pack, Terry walked past the snoring body of Luke Graystone and somehow managed to force her way into the incredibly cramped and low-leveled room that was supposedly the bathroom. Barely fitting inside, she managed to shut the door behind her.

Aside from a metal toilet, wooden walls, and a sink with a dirty mirror, the bathroom of their hideaway cottage seemed more like a prison. Glaring at her acne in the mirror, Terry started to stare herself down.

"_Look at yourself, girl_", she thought. "_You're trying to pilot a ship that doesn't have an engine_".

She thought of the way she had united Mitch and Luke to a common and vague goal of, "not fighting". Besides bullying that centered around her, Terry had never been able to unite anybody to do anything. In fact, until the program, she had hardly spoken a word to any of her classmates. After all, she was a background character after all. She refused to be involved with their problems, even though they were so involved in hers.

It had all started when her parents had stopped paying attention to her. It was hard to explain, but one day, they seemed to have simply decided to give up on life. Shortly before middle school started, her mother, who already had treated Terry like a speck of dust instead of a daughter, left. There wasn't any real reason; she just simply packed up her things and left without a trace or explanation. Terry had still had the pink balloon from the birthday incident where her mother hadn't picked her up, and after that, it was the only real piece of memorabilia she had left when her home had been somewhat of a whole. After that, it had just been her and the rest: her drop-out half brothers Dwayne and Ray, her college-bound and head-up-his-ass brother Brian, her baby brother Scott and the twins, and finally, her father who would rather sit on the couch laughing at racist comedians then support a family. The Klingerman household had, for no apparent reason, become a mess.

Staring at the mirror, Terry wouldn't back down. As much as she refused to admit it, she had created the person that she was staring at. She could lie to herself all the way through, but in the end, it was entirely her fault.

Five days later, the pink balloon had popped. Ten days after that, school had begun, and dellusioned and isolated from society, Terry had let herself go. She hadn't bothered with make-up. She hadn't combed her hair. She hadn't even showered. After all, if she let herself become a mess just like the world she was in, maybe somebody would actually talk to her instead of just ignore her. Instead, she had been dubbed a, "nutcase".

It had started with rubber bands snapping on her wrists. Then she had started burning her arm with a lighter. However, when the stress came, the only real way to get rid of it was to cut…and cut…_and cut…_

Not being able to look at herself in the mirror anymore, Terry dug her fingernails into her wrist in a shallow slit, giving her yet another self-inflicted scar on her arm. Satisfied, and quickly rolling up her sleeve, she walked back outside and closed the door behind her. All in all, she definitely wasn't a leader.

* * *

**No Students Eliminated**

* * *

**30 Students Remaining**


	22. Day 1: Hour 20: 30 Students Remaining

**Before continuing with this chapter, there's some details that I have to make sure everybody reading this knows.**

**There was an error with the story alert system when I posted the previous chapter before this. Because of this, you may have missed it. If you didn't read the flashback with Zane's friends breaking into the deserted village, you missed the last chapter. Make sure you check it, since it actually contains some important details. Also, the story has gone under a rewrite. The chapters, "Start", and, "Hour 1", have been altered, including a scene with two of the minor girls in Amber's clique leaving the school as well as Chris's group meeting up. The rewrite is still going on, explaining why the progress of new chapters had slowed down. Before reading this chapter, I would go back and read the new scenes first.**

**Anyway, on with the story. Sorry about the recent delay.**

* * *

To most people, there really wasn't much to say when it came to Erin. Besides being a mildly pretty and ditzy girl with a reputation as the class whore, there really wasn't much to her that caught anyone's eye. To add to it, without the overdose of mascara that she splashed onto her face, she knew she honestly wasn't much to look at. Shady, pimply, and colored like a pale olive, her skin always had a sickly complexion to it that only seemed attractive after powdering herself with makeup.

However, for once, Erin Thompson (Girl #19) wasn't thinking about herself, or what everyone else thought about her for that matter. Staring into the ocean water as she sat in the surf, she struggled to wipe the blood and brain matter from her hands that had splattered onto her. For awhile she had kept it on, afraid washing it away would wash away her friend's memory, but eventually, she decided that it was best not to think about her.

Victoria Jenkins was dead.

It was hard to explain, and it went beyond any explanation, but somehow, she had been the first of their group to drop out like a fly. Tori had been her friend; in fact, she had been the only member of the clique that she had ever spared a thought for. All through life, she had always seemed so well put-together. In between gardening club, fashion club, cheerleading practice, and every other damn thing she scheduled into her free time, she had always seemed like nothing could have ever hurt her. Along with that, she had never taken part in any of the bullying and gossiping that the rest of the clique had treated like a path of life. Every aspect of her had been perfect. If there had been stress at all, she had done a great job hiding it.

Unfortunately, the program had unrevealed it all in a matter of hours.

The moment Amber's leg had been shot, luckily not breaking any vital veins, Victoria had started a slow descent into insanity. She had sided with Adrienne immeadidly, and slowly, she had become paranoid beyond belief. Having no choice as a follower, Erin was forced to take the same path as her friend. She had tried to help her, she had even tried to save her, but it was no use. The leader and organizer of the Girl Scouts had fallen out with something as simple as a brick to the head.

_Don't lose your weapon, Erin…You might put it to good use._

And the worst part was Erin knew that she had chosen the losing side. Adrienne was obviously insane but she knew what she was doing. Amber was good-spirited but didn't know which way to go next. It was hard to say which side would guarantee her a longer lifespan. She had considered switching over to Amber and Shyla, but then again, Adrienne now possessed a pistol and ammunition. She was unpredictable. Erin knew she had a reputation as a pessimist, making everyone get a negative vibe from her, so she obviously didn't have any good feelings for an escape of any kind.

As an infant, she had been born with a lung and respiratory problems. Although the doctors had guaranteed it as a fifty-fifty chance to pull through, she had done it and somehow survived the ordeal with minor damage. To add to the misfortune, she had been hit by an eighteen-wheeler when she was two, and yet again, she had pulled through. All through her life, Erin had the habit to fall into unlucky circumstances and emerge without any scratches to speak of. On the other hand, the Battle Royale was a pretty hard thing to walk out of.

Sure, she'd been good at roping her way out of things for awhile. She'd seen plenty of faces, including the majority of the boys in the grade that had paid her for sex, and she understood how the human mind worked pretty well. When the time came, she could be manipulative. Then again, nobody was as manipulative and sneaky as Adrienne. In all of those old-fashioned stories, the snake had always been a conniving and sneaky animal. Although Erin had never really noticed it before, Adrienne's long tongue snacking away on her gum looked a lot like a snake.

Swearing, she continued to wash away the remains of Victoria from her porcelain-colored hands when a familiar voice rung behind her:

"I was surprised by how fast it was over", Adrienne commented. "I didn't know heads broke that easily".

Almost like a keepsake from the murder, she hadn't even bothered to wash off the blood that had stained her entire shirt. She was still chewing her bubble gum with her unpleasant mouth, snacking on it loudly.

"I guess, Adrienne…"

"What's wrong? This just brings us a step closer to getting out of here. I thought that was what you wanted. The numbers are declining".

"Maybe we could have helped her", Erin sighed. "I mean, I think it was just a really bad hit to the mouth. We might have been able to keep her alive for awhile…"

"She was _dying_", Adrienne cut in abruptly. "I just eased her troubles and made her merry little journey to hell even easier. She's dead. We're not. Get over it."

"I guess. I've been thinking though".

"Really?" Adrienne said "Remember, I don't like it when people think too much. You know, I'm actually glad Victoria died. She was too full of thoughts. I was tired of her after awhile. I hate boring people. Come to think of it, everyone's a bit boring around here".

Erin glared. "What the hell is the matter with you? Don't you ever talk normally? You're like the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland got up one day and decided to kill people".

Adrienne smirked. "I'm nothing like the rabbit. I hate tea and I'm not late for anything".

"That's not what I meant. Why do you always have to over-analyze everything? Why don't you just take things for granted?'

"Because when you take things for granted", Adrienne said calmly. "They turn on you and stab you in the back. Anyway, to celebrate our first victory, we're eating like kings tonight. I'm going to start catching some fish and you can start gathering up driftwood to make a fire. Hurry-

"Adrienne, can I leave for awhile?'

"_What_?"

The words had escaped Erin before she even had a chance to think them through. Her entire body was shaking, and for the first time in years, Adrienne's proud and cocky demeanor was gone. For the first time Erin had ever seen her, she looked furious and ready to tear her apart.

"There's someone…", Erin began. "There's someone I have to talk to. Just give me two hours. No, one hour! One hour and I'll be back! You can just hand me the pistol and I'll be back as soon as I can".

From the moment she had started speaking, she had known that she had made a grave mistake.

Adrienne snarled like an animal:

"You _bitch_!"

Before she could react, Adrienne grasped Victoria's pistol from the back pocket of her jeans, cocked it, and pointed it directly at Erin's head. It had all happened so fast that she hadn't even had a chance to realize it was pointed at her head until Adrienne was screaming her mind out at her.

"Do you realize that I could shatter your brain into thousands of pieces right now, Erin?" Adrienne stammered "Do you know that I could make you never have another thought again and rot in the ground forever, and all you have to do to avoid it is do what I say?" Her fingers were trembling at the trigger. "You made a right choice by siding with me. If you sided with Amber, I wouldn't have had any mercy on you. And now, you're going to blow me away, blow your _life_ away, over another goddamned boy that you have to talk to? Listen, you slut! I'm sure you don't want to die so I want you to repeat after me right now. _I will do whatever Adrienne Spring tells me"._

Erin's entire body was shaking. Adrienne's hand was trembling, and one wrong click could send her head all across the shoreline.

"I….I…will do whatever Adrienne Spring tells me", Erin stammered.

"Good".

Calmly, the loudmouthed girl of Amber's clique removed the pistol from Erin's head. Feeling her color drain back to her face, she felt like bursting into tears. Instead, her shady and serious face remained calm, staring at the one person that possessed the possibility of survival.

"Now, Erin, I was going to catch some food for us, but considering the fact that you're a sneaky little whore, I don't trust you much with wandering off on your own around this beach to collect firewood. Now, you're going to catch the fish, and trust me, it's tough work. If you don't return to me with an armful of fish, I'll pull a Victoria Jenkins on you. Are we clear?"

"Yes…".

"Good. Sharpen a stick and don't move. If you start moving, you'll scare the fish away".

As Adrienne skipped off, Erin glanced in the corner of her eye at the other side of the beach. Now that night had completely fallen, it was almost impossible to make out the figures of Amber and Shyla. The more she thought about it, the more she was dissatisfied with the fact of how brilliant Adrienne was. _She_ had shot Amber. That had made escape possible but agonizing and almost impossible. _She_ had torn the group apart. The five friends, now four, were all at the verge of killing eachother. _Adrienne. Adrienne. Adrienne._

"_It wasn't supposed to be like this_", Erin thought. "_Not me_".

She would make it. She wasn't sure how, but she'd survived more than enough in life to know she could outlast this as long as she could. If it made sense, she was lucky to be unlucky.

_And him_. She had to find him before it was too late. All she needed was a quick visit to wherever he was, and after that, she would return and join Amber. All she had to do was make the dash to the woods, and after that, Adrienne would be faced with a match of one to three where she would easily be defeated.

_Soon enough._

"How are the fish coming, Erin!"

"Go-

_THUD!_

Echoing into the night, a gunshot from Victoria's pistol at the hands of Adrienne Spring (Girl #17) hurt Erin's ears. Spinning around, she stared in horror at her tormenter pointing the pistol at the woods with a deranged and pleasure-filled look on her face.

"_And never come back you damn bookworm_!"

* * *

As the first night of the Battle Royale fully engulfed the island, Nathan was fully aware of three things. One, he was exhausted and beaten. Two, he was going to finish his journey alive and well. And three, he had just been shot by Adrienne.

Cringing as he ran, never looking back at the strip of beach that he had peeked into, Nathan Carpenter (Boy #16) pulled up his ivory turtleneck sweater and inspected the damage. Although the most it had done was add to the agony, the damn bulletproof vest had probably saved his life. After the bullet had entered into his shoulder blade, it had ripped through the skin and rebounded off the metal vest, becoming solidly lodged in his upper arm. It hurt, it stung, and more than likely he would become a cripple, but he refused to let any of it get in the way. He was getting out and that was that. Unfortunately, the gun wound had only been the latest of tragedies that had occurred in the last few hours. His issue of Aoi Sesei had fallen from his grip and landed in a rain puddle, completely ruining every single page. It looked like Kasumi Aoi had left him to finish the adventure alone.

"_I think there's only one kind of folks", _Nathan thought_. "Folks"._

_To Kill a Mockingbird_. If that wasn't a great story, he didn't know what was. The way the themes of losing innocence and racial injustice had been used was brilliant. The characters had been brilliant, too. Fluent, detailed, and most of all, real. Why couldn't anybody these days have the same depth that the characters in books had? Why was the world the way it was? Why couldn't Nathan do anything about it?

Slowly, his unathletic and stumbling run gave way to a sharp fall on the forest ground. Blood had seeped down his sweater, and in the moonlight, he made out the dark red on his fingers that had dripped down his sleeve.

"_I need surgery_", Nathan thought. "_God, I'm really going to need surgery_".

Cringing, he pulled back the sleeve of his sweater to examine the wound. It was as bad as he expected; the girl had planted him right in the shoulder and the bullet was lodged somewhere between the skin of his armpit and his collarbone. He wasn't going to let a little bullet like that take him down, though. He would keep going even if his entire chest was spitting out lead bullets.

As he began to pick at the wound, he noticed what resembled a sewer manhole in front of him. Broken wood, poorly planted, was lying in splinters around it. Approaching closer, he noticed that it wasn't a manhole; it was a mineshaft. Judging from the broken wood, it was probably a shaft that somebody had slipped right through too. There wasn't any evidence of any classmate around though, so he didn't see the need to waste time to figure out who it was. It wasn't like it mattered that much. Sure, he had friends in Spanish Rivers High. Adam was all right, even if his humor was somewhat sadistic, and Meyerhold, although spoiled, had put up with him. He was a nerd, but when he tried hard enough, he could mix well with anyone. Still, everything was just so trivial in high school. The jocks ruled the school, the cheerleaders opened their legs for them, and the rest were pretty much bystanders. When was something interesting going to happen?

_Sssesese...sesesesesssss…_

Suddenly, there was sharp rustling in the bushes behind him, followed by a rough brush at his ankle hanging out of his torn and dirt-stained khaki pants. Feeling his heart racing, and knowing the story may have been at its climax, he did the one thing that made any amount of sense: he swung his boxing gloves like an animal.

Screaming into the night, letting his boxing gloves pummel and destroy whoever had attempted to attack him. His attacker had tripped, and right now, he could feel the fabric of his gloves beating and twisting at the killer's foot. He heard an ear-splitting crack of bone, and with that, he knew he had claimed his first victim. It wasn't a great feeling, and it was almost frightening, but he had told himself many times the only way to get out was to consider this like a typical walk in the park. Just don't get sucked into it like the rest of them.

Breathing hard, he almost felt his heart jump when he glanced down at his attacker. Along with that, he felt even more stupid than he did after putting on those damn boxing gloves.

"Oh…"

It wasn't a person. It was a bird; specifically, a crow. Or at least it had been.

The bird's beak had become like a flap of torn paper, blowing softly in the wind, while its evil eyes were open in permanent shock. Its intestines had spilled out of its stomach, coating its wings. Now that he had a good look at the thing, Nathan noticed exactly why it couldn't; its left wing was broken. For a second, he felt sympathy. In fact, he felt a lot of sympathy for the little guy, the poor thing that had been literally walked over like a bug, staring at him with its dead crow eyes. Then, folding the animals' corpse in his palm, he remembered his mission and walked on, carefully tossing the bird into his daypack.

Kneeling down, he carefully placed a foot on the rocky ledge within the mineshaft. There was a slight amount of dirt falling, and beyond that, there really wasn't much foot support. Falling, like whoever had toppled down before him, may have actually been a much better idea. _Would he find any corpses there_? _Mae? Enrique? Risa? Don't fall into it like the rest of them, Nathan. Just keeping running…and running…and running…_

If there was a mineshaft that meant there was, for an unknown reason, a series of tunnels under the island. If there were tunnels, that meant quick and easy shortcuts, as well as hiding places where he would never stand the chance of being found. If he became bored inside during the night, and somebody just happened to be passing one of the shafts and disrupted him, he would use his boxing gloves (or perhaps their _own_ weapon) to make his adventure even more exciting. This was going to be interesting.

"_We've been walked over_", the crow squawked in the mind of Nathan Carpenter (Boy #16). "_We've been walked over because we just weren't fast enough_".

Crawling into the shaft, and praying Adrienne's bullet wound would heal, he prepared himself for darkness. _Was crow edible?_

* * *

_I probably couldn't forget…Jungle love in the surf in the pouring rain…Everything's better when wet…  
_

Without a radio in the AMC Gremlin, Logan had amused herself by singing melodies in her head. For awhile, it had kept her occupied, and most of all, it had calmed her nerves. However, after going through a handful of classic rock, a few catchy party songs, and even humming the Indiana Jones theme, she had realized not only that she was out of music, but it was just making the situation seem even worse than it already was.

Her arm needed to be amputated. Her nerves had died, rendering it to a beefy sack of flesh that had no use to her anymore. The pain was gone, and now, she was simply carrying around dead weight. If there was anything positive to say, it was the fact that it didn't hurt anymore. However, her shivering shirt, which she had wrapped her arm in, was now soaked with fat and arterial blood. It would be okay though. It had to. After all, Logan had read a story in a magazine once about a climber losing his arm on a mountain and surviving a week before the helicopters found him. To top it off, he lived. Then again, the climber hadn't been four hundred pounds.

Logan didn't want to die. It was pathetic, but that was the one sentence that had kept her alive since the program begun. The more she repeated it in her head, the more it dawned on her that hiding in a car, which worked _perfectly_, was basically sitting duck. With that, and not much time to decide on anything, Logan had pulled the car out of the junkyard and set off. The hardest part of navigating through Cuna Cielo had been the trees. More then often, she had been forced to shuffle her way out of the car and break loose branches or fallen logs that blocked her path. Another repetitive problem had been the fact that even with the car seat shifted all the way back, Logan's bloated stomach barely fit inside the puny car. Still, she had managed to force her way through the woods, somehow not seen nor heard by any other students. Logan had thanked God that it was night.

And now, cruising smoothly near where they had departed from the school, she glanced out the window calmly. It may have been a stupid idea to keep the headlights on, but what other way was she going to see during the night. Her machete was rested against the glove compartment, and having basically been unused for the entire program, it still gleamed like it was fit for an antique shop.

"_A song_", she thought._ "Damn, I need another song quick"._

Settling on an awful Celine Dion song that she knew half the words too, Logan drummed her fingers against the steering wheel to calm her nerves. You aren't dying, Logan. That's a definite. Keep the headlights on. What's the worse that c-

Without warning, somebody leapt in front of the shimmering lights of her AMC Gremlin.

Screaming like a whale, Logan pulled the brakes and made an instant grab for the machete in the glove compartment. However, she ended up fumbling with it and let it fall on the floor, causing her to scream even more. Feeling her heart thudding like a jackhammer, she struggled to unbuckle her seatbelt as the person made a jog toward her window. _This is like some urban legend or some other shit. I could die anyway and I had to go out like this?_

Forgetting the seatbelt, Logan reached for the machete on the floor and turned to the window side to prepare for her attacker.

Instead, she was met with almost the opposite; a boy wearing mascara and a blonde wig. Along with that, it was probably one of the most peaceful faces she could have seen.

"Logan?"

Peter Juntz (Boy #9) looked like he had jumped out of his skin, and if that grenade he was holding in his hand had fallen, he probably would have. Relieved, he stepped back with his arms folded and surveyed the beat-up but durable AMC Gremlin that had saved her from dying a lonely death in a junkyard.

"Hi Peter", Logan sighed. Her entire body was still shaking. She wondered if he noticed. Instead, he seemed to be more mesmerized by the fact that she had a working vehicle. He brought his red nails across the rusty surface of the AMC Gremlin, obviously shocked.

"Sweet ride", he said. "How'd you get it?"

"Found it", Logan explained. "Whoever worked there must have hid the keys when they found out they were using this island for the program. I think they might have been trying to help out whoever found it, or something".

Peter smirked. "They could have given you _any_ car and they decided to hide the keys in a Gremlin?"

She grinned. Logan had always liked Peter. Along with being extremely mature for their age, he had always been the kind of person that looked on the inside of a person instead of the outside. To somebody like her, this meant the world. It was surprising though that while he managed to stand up for everyone, he was never able to stand up for himself when he was tormented for being a drag queen.

"You're taking this whole thing well", she said.

"What do you mean?"

Logan laughed. "We're in a game of life and death and you can still joke around about the horrible car that I was lucky enough to find?

"You might as well live it up with the time you have", Peter sighed. "The clock's ticking and if we don't get out, we might as well have enjoyed the time we had in this hellhole".

"I guess", Logan replied. She paused. "Who's we?"

"Oh, sorry! I forgot how little you know about what's going on! I can't explain it all right here. Call me paranoid, but someone might be listening. Get out of the car and follow me".

Slightly hesitant, Logan shuffled her enormous body out of the driver's seat and managed to squeeze out of the tiny car. Noticing her arm wrapped against her sweat and blood-soaked stomach, Peter's eyes grew wide.

"Jesus Christ, what happened to your arm!"

"Meyerhold", she replied. "I'm not sure what happened to him. What Burke implied wasn't too pretty. Poor little guy".

"I love how you can still say that about someone after they tried to kill you", Peter sighed. "Still, that arm's going to have to come off. Anyway, follow me. Our camp's back by the school".

Motioning with the grenades in his hand, Peter quickly ducked under the bushes as Logan followed him. For just a second she considered taking the car, but the path that Peter had taken was cluttered with so many trees and thorny bushes that Logan had already felt her legs been cut twice. Taking her best luck in the game down the path was too risky. Besides, if anyone tried to steal it, she would definitely hear it.

"Are those your grenades?"

He shook his head. "Tristan's. Travis and him are down there working on our escape. We've all been best friends for as long as I can remember. They both jumped at the chance to help me with getting out of here".

"What are you doing? Building a boat?"

"Actually, we're digging a hole, but that works too. C'mon, camp's right past those bushes over there".

Logan stared. "Aren't we heading right back to the school?"

Peter grinned. "How else do you expect to blow it up?"

Before she could ask another question, she realized that they had reached the top of a slightly sloped knoll. The lights of the school, where at least thirty trained soldiers and a lunatic teacher were supervising their deaths, were flickering in front of them. She recognized the doorway where they had exited, along with the series of hills where they had all dashed off in various directions. Although it was nearly impossible to see in the night, she made out a couple of figures sitting beside a shed.

"Tristan! Travis!" Peter called. "I brought company!"

Tristan Igolovosky (Boy #8) and Travis Igolovosky (Boy #7) glanced up from the side of the equipment shed. Identical with their auburn hair and stone faces, they looked almost like a mirrored image of eachother; the Samneric of the program. Then again, while their appearance was almost eerily identical, their personalities were what made them different. Tristan was popular and a rumored player around the girls while Travis was a jealous and arrogant nerd who spent his time playing MMORPG games on the Internet. They almost lived in two separate worlds.

"Is it that fat chick?" Travis called out.

"That _fat chick _has a name", Peter cut in. "It's Logan".

Logan rolled her eyes. "Forget the fat chick for a second and explain to me exactly what the hell is going on here. Why are you guys hanging out by a place where one step could make your heads blown to pieces?"

And with that, Peter explained his entire mission all in one breath. He explained the history of the Japanese pilots in World War 2 propelling themselves into their enemies to save themselves, he explained how they had dug two identical pits to fill with chlorine, and he had explained that enough dirt over the school's Danger Zone would disrupt the signal to his collar. They were planning to make some kind of dirt walkway, roughly ten feet high, where Peter would walk down with a rope attached to his collar that traveled into the pit of chlorine. However, none of this was the part that really hit Logan hard.

"You're lighting a match in the pit? Are you nuts? You'll blow him to _pieces_!"

Peter grimaced. "That's the point. If I die and blow up the school, it'll save everyone else. My collar exploding combined with the chlorine imploding in on itself might light half the island on fire. Ever hear of when a power plant blows up? The explosion can go on for miles".

"This is crazy!"

"I know", Tristan cut in suddenly. "It _is_ crazy, Logan. Peter here doesn't understand that he doesn't even have to die. He just has to play the tragic hero and die for everyone else because he feels bad for himself!"

"It's nothing like that!" Peter snapped. "And stop trying to change my mind, Tristan. What's done is done. I'm dying and the rest of you are escaping". He paused. "Then again, there is one thing that I really didn't think about until recently. Something that could ruin all of this".

Travis stared. "What?'

"Well, how do we make sure everyone knows to get off the island the moment the collars fall off? We could burn everyone here for all we know. We have to make sure everyone not playing the game is on one side of the island and ready to run for their lives. And we need a way to get them _off_ the island. Not everyone here can swim that far. No offense, Logan".

She shrugged. "None taken".

However, she really wasn't listening to Peter. Logan's mind, which had been filled with grief and blame since the program started, was now beginning to work and strategize. Her entire life rose up behind her, ready to swallow her in a dark wave. _Her gland disease. Preferring to sell her family just to eat a damn cupcake. Being an outcast. Sitting on the side in a garbage pit and watching everyone else work._ That had been her entire life. She wasn't proud of it, either.

Before she even knew what she was saying, she had spoken the words:

"I'll round everyone up".

The three boys (one that preferred to be a girl) stared at her blankly. Tristan looked more confused than anything else. Travis was scowling with a bemused expression. Peter, however, looked interested in her continuing.

"What did you say?'

"I've always just sat on my ass watching everyone else make a difference", Logan said, not really knowing what she was talking about. "I don't want to die, but I don't want to be hiding in a garbage pit like a coward either. I want to make a difference, and if it means risking my life, I'm more than happy to oblige to that. You've always been a fighter, Peter. I don't know if that's what I want, but I do want to die as somebody who made a difference. Even if the difference isn't a lot".

"You want to go out with a bang?" Tristan asked.

"I'd prefer not to die at all, but if I have to, yeah. I want to go out being remembered".

Peter stared. "Remembered, huh?"

"Yeah…"

For a split second, Peter was completely silent. The three onlookers of his plan stared at their leader, expecting an answer or anything that would tell them what the next step was. Instead, they were all met with one of the least-expected things he could have said.

"I don't want to die either", Peter said. "And I'm going with Logan".

"You're just going to leave us here?" Travis barked.

"You guys have grenades and a nearly assembled bomb**", **Peter explained. "No one's messing with you. I'm going with Logan. We're going to round up as many people as we can to get to the west to wait for the explosion. Once they hear it, everyone takes off as fast as they can into the water".

"On what?" Tristan asked. "It's not like we have a boat. Trust me, before I hooked up with you guys, I passed the docks by the north shore. Every single engine's been ripped, and if it doesn't run on a motor, the sail's been torn. They pretty much crippled us of transportation and left us here".

"There has to be something here", Peter replied. "Even an inner tube would work. If everyone just held on, it would probably stay afloat long enough for everyone to get to shore".

Logan stared. "Where is _shore_?"

"It depends. All I know is that the good old U.S.A is dead to us. We can never go back there even if we want to. Our lives are probably going to be restoring boats at some port town in Mexico. It won't be fun, and we'll probably work to survive until we die, but we'll live until then. All we have to do is get out of here first".

"I think this is full-proof", Tristan sighed. "But..."

"But what?"

Tristan, ladies man and track runner, didn't look as reserved and collected as he did at school. He had always cracked dirty jokes and been loud and obnoxious for the sake of being loud and obnoxious. There was somebody loud, roudy, and athletic in every single class, and in Spanish Rivers, that had been his moniker. However, the competition had completely mellowed him out; he almost wasn't the same person anymore. If Travis had changed though, it was impossible to tell. He had always been quiet, edgy, and most of all, an asshole.

"Well, it doesn't have to be this way, Peter", Tristan sighed. "We could just as easily make a bomb, disable the collars, and lob it at the school. You wouldn't have to die".

"It's like you said, Tristan. I'm going out with a bang whether you like or not. C'mon Logan. Keep piling the dirt to make the walkway, guys. If I'm not back by noon tomorrow, I'm dead. If that happens, play along and go with Tristan's idea. I'm out for the night".

Turning his back to the twins, Peter began to walk away back towards the sloped hill leading to the car while Logan, in a daze, was inclined to follow him. She wondered if she should've asked Peter his motives for following her, why just protecting her wasn't worth risking his life and their chance at escaping, but she realized that that wasn't the reason at all. Peter was joining her due to his own motives. Like many people, she didn't understand him. Only Peter understood Peter and that was the way things worked. As they trudged up the hill, Logan looked skeptically at the cross-dresser walking beside her. _How full-proof was full-proof? How much in any plan was there for a glitch in the system?_

"You want to drive?" she asked bewildered.

"Sure. I've been using a fake license for about a year now"

As they made their way to the AMC Gremlin, and even when they got in, she still couldn't believe her luck. Not only had she saved her own hide by getting out of the junkyard, but she had also found what seemed like a full-proof escape plan. Also, she had done one thing that she had never done before.

She had taken care of herself.

There wasn't a disease or any weight issues standing in her way. She had proven herself to be a completely fighter who had the chance of beating the mess they were all in. Instead of willowing in her own problems, she was going to give the world, the screwed up world that she had put up with for so long, a run for its money. As Peter put the key into the ignition, for almost her entire life as well the program, Logan realized there might have been hope after all.

* * *

**No Students Eliminated**

* * *

**30 Students Remaining**


	23. Day 1: Hour 21: 30 Students Remaining

If Travis Igolovosky (Boy #7) had a social life to begin with, it was limited to MMORPG and online-gaming networks. He spent most of his Saturday nights sitting in his room, hunched over at the computer screen with a sore neck and his headphones practically strapped to his head. From Doom to Half-Life, any game with blood and creatures ripping off their own heads was a great way to waste his time. In general, he wasn't much of a name in Spanish Rivers. Just an angry and vengeful dork.

That being said, there wasn't much of another way for him to start a conversation besides relate it to either video games or hardcore violence. Considering how he missed both of them sorely (except perhaps the second one which was now all around him) he settled on the first blood-splattered scenario that popped into his mind.

"There's a zombie invasion", Travis said to his brother. "You wake up from a coma and find all of them in the streets eating people. There's other survivors but they're all hiding. What's your first move?'

Sitting against the equipment shed beside the school, the Igolovosky twins, the identical nerd and jock, let the cigarette smoke from Peter's box of Camel engulf the air above them. According to Peter's orders they were supposed to be patching the walkway where he would walk to his chlorine-induced death, but seeing how neither of them wanted to remind themselves of the fact that they were going to lose a friend, they had decided to ignore their troubles by getting high.

"Look for people that could help fix the country I guess", Tristan Igolovosky (Boy #8) said with a shrug. "Maybe form a big group of people to walk around until-

"I'd go on top of a mall and snipe all of the goddamned bastards with a rifle", Travis cut in as he took a drag from his cigarette. "Then I'd find the hottest damsel in distress I can find and reproduce like hell until we rebuild society".

"That's really nice", Tristan said rolling his eyes. "What damsel in distress would screw with you though?'

"I'd probably save the hottest one I can find. After that, we'd fall in love and she'd probably cling on me for the rest of the adventure".

"Beautiful", Tristan replied "Remind me to kick your ass if we ever when we get out of here".

Travis's face clouded over. "_If_ we get out of here".

"Well, we _are_ getting out of here".

"What makes you so sure about that, Tristan? For all we know Peter could be working against us. The moment he turns himself into a human-bomb, he might change his mind about dying and decide to blow us up. Maybe his plan won't even work to begin with. How do we know the dirt will mess up the signal to the collars anyway?"

"It's something about radio waves getting ruptured", Tristan said. "Peter explained it to me earlier when you digging the whole. Anyway, I trust him. You should to. How long have we known him to begin with?"

"Since kindergarten, but that doesn't matter. People change in this game, bro. I watch it every year. People can start off as best friends, and when it comes down to the two of them, they could stab eachother just to watch themselves bleed. It's good television but it sucks when you actually get into it".

"He wouldn't do that", Tristan snapped. "He's not like everyone else. He's our best friend and he just wants to go out as somebody who's remembered. Why would you have a problem with that?'

"You never know who's going to turning against you", Travis said.

"The reason I followed Peter to begin', Tristan began angrily. "Is because I'm tired of people getting hurt. I don't want to see anyone else die like everyone here. People don't need to get hurt like this".

"The plan isn't going to work! Peter has no clue what he's doing!"

"Let's just wing it then!" Tristan snapped. "If his plan works, half of us survive and have a chance of living a normal life!"

Travis glared. "You call living in a half-assed ghetto as fugitives for the rest of our lives normal?"

"I care about everyone here. A hell of a lot more than you. A human life is a human life and there's no way I'm passing up anybody's life here. Nobody else is dying and Peter's making sure of that. You should be grateful".

"Well, you should watch your back".

With that, taking one last drag from his cigarette, Travis coughed audibly and crushed it with his sneaker. Dusting himself off, he stood up and stormed away from his twin. The moon over the first night of the Battle Royale was bright, and shining over the school like a dome of light, it looked almost like a warning. A warning that nobody ever escaped the Battle Royale; a fact that Travis knew only he understood. Ever since the competition started, he had been thinking. Some thoughts were frightened ones, some were furious ones, but none of them were hopeful.

And some were the ones that he would never tell his brother.

Tristan was his twin. Sure, that was true. They had been born at the same time and day, nearly seven minutes apart, but they couldn't have been more different. Along with being a star player on the swim team and track team, he was also the very definition of an All-American teen. Charismatic and outgoing, he was in nearly every club yearbook picture to date, always with that arrogant and oblivious smile on his face. While all of this happened, Travis had always been thrust to the side, playing video games or sitting alone in class with nobody to talk to.

A jealous nerd. That was what he was. He hated to admit it, but it was true. A jealous nerd who wanted nothing more than to stop trying to escape and start actually ranking up a decent body count to be remembered by. Two obstacles stood in the way though…Tristan…and Peter.

It wouldn't be hard to overcome those obstacles either.

_Am I seriously thinking about this? Am I really thinking about killing my brother? My best friend?_

They weren't getting out. They were all disagreeable. They didn't understand that there was no way they could possibly get out. If he attempted to leave the campsite and play the game, Tristan would follow him and refuse to leave his side. Obliterating him from the competition may be the only option. After all, all he had to do was convert his jealousy into adrenaline and stuff a grenade into his brother's mouth. It would be simple, effective, and most of all, his brother would feel no pain. After that, Travis, taking his MMORPG tactics to real life, would escape and begin to play the game for survival.

_But…_

With a sigh, Travis shuddered and rushed back to his brother, who was still smoking his cigarette beside the shed. When he noticed that he had arrived, he glanced up.

"Yeah?"

"I want you to know", Travis said hardly choosing his words. "That whatever happens in the next two days, you're the best friend I ever had. Even if something bad happens, I'm never going to forget you, or even Peter. We're all going to live on no matter what".

Not wanting to see his brother's shocked expression, Travis Igolovosky (Boy #7) craned his neck and turned away. He had a game plan. He had the tactics. All he had to do determine if it was the right decision or not. Until then, he would wait.

* * *

Rory wasn't going to last much longer.

Along with his entire face being drenched in sweat and his formally pale skin now gaining a greenish complexion, he simply looked like a complete mess. His clothes were ragged and wet, his eyes were hollow and red, and every few moments, he would cough like an old man at his deathbed. Whatever he had contracted due to his HIV weakening him had nearly finished breeding, and even though his friend was going to die, Zane finished the last lyrics of one of his favorite songs by the Fab Four.

"Making all his nowhere plans", Zane finished. "_For nobody"_.

Rory looked impressed. "Nice job. You messed up a little bit in the first verse but I think you got the whole thing right. It's a hard song to remember too".

Zane smiled a toothless grin. "What can you say? I'm a violent hippy. I could listen to anti-war 60's music and crack someone's head in at the same time".

Rory shivered and choked out between a cough: "I'll bet".

After struggling to put aside the fact that Rory had planned to die (and Zane still wasn't exactly sure when he planned to do it) the two out of the three friends that remained of the gang had played a half-assed game of, "_finish the lyrics_". It passed their time on captives, but after awhile, all of the 60's songs that they had named had only made the situation seem even more pathetic. They had been taken to an island, kidnapped, beaten, and in Rory's case, succumbed to illness. Even if both of them were fans of the Beatles and many other old bands, the last thing they needed to make themselves feel better was music about peace; even if it was the one thing they wanted more than anything else.

Glancing over as he shifted in the bindings of his duct tape, he glanced over at the stellar actress of the drama club that had recently become the newest captive of Chris's bog. After the quarterback had attempted to undress her, Roxy Patterson (Girl #12) had grown backbone and bitten his thumb, nearly biting off a chunk of it. Deranged and slowly becoming an insane tyrant, Chris had ordered Eddie to take off his sweat-stained shirt and use it to tie Roxy down. Even if he was Chris's lackey, Zane couldn't help but feel sympathy for the way he was shivering. After realizing it was Eddie, the stupidest and possibly second cruelest member of the football team, he realized it really wasn't worth it.

Still Roxy was alive; beaten, bruised, and a little shaken up, but very much alive.

Kneeling behind Rory and staring blankly at the ground, Preston Tracy (Boy #18) sat hugging his knees. His face was hidden under the hood of his purple windbreaker, and every few seconds, he would hum softly to himself. Behind them, Eddie was mechanically walking in circles with a serious expression on his ugly face. Chris, meanwhile, was sitting on the termite-eaten log and rubbing his fingers along Zane's sniper rifle with a dark gleam in his eyes. _It's all real._

"How the hell can HIV be killing you?" Preston said, not making eye contact. "You don't even have AIDS".

"It's not AIDS that got him, dumbass", Zane growled. "He's been running around all day. He caught something and his body wasn't strong enough to defend it. It's not rocket science".

"It doesn't matter though", Rory coughed. "The point is that I made the commitment to die and I'm sticking to it. Want to finish any more song lyrics?"

"I'm done", Zane sighed. "Let's think of something else to play".

"How about we go around and ask questions?" Rory suggested. "Sort of like truth or dare except the only choice you have is truth. Want me to start".

"Sure".

"What did you want to be when you got out of high school?'

Zane thought about if for a minute. His last choice was immeadidly somebody that enforced the law, especially a cop like his dad. He'd had fantasies when he was younger about being an underground terrorist, but after the real world kicked in, that dellusion faded. Finally, sizing up his life, he came up with a good answer.

"Everything the government doesn't want me to do", he replied.

"Good answer. What about you, Roxy?"

Roxy didn't say anything. Still shaking from the sexual assault brought on her by Chris and Eddie, she merely stared into space shivering.

"Roxy?"

"Screw it man, she's-

"I wanted to be an actress", Roxy said instantly. "I always wanted to do something on stage ever since I was just a little girl. I started tap dancing when I was five. That led into recitals, recitals led to me getting into singing, and singing led to acting. I always wanted to see my name on Broadway".

"It is", Preston said. "I bet all of the newspapers laying on Broadway are talking about the program. You're probably all over it".

Zane glared. "That wasn't funny, man. At least she has dreams".

"You could call them dreams", Roxy sighed. "But in the end, it just got so demanding that it was a nightmare. I played so many different characters that I couldn't even relate to the real world anymore. It sort of de-humanized me. I would get up early in the morning to go to practice. My parents said I could quit anytime I wanted, but I just kept going because I knew they were just trying to make me feel like they supported whatever I did. If I really quit, they would probably disinherit me from the family. All of the performances I was doing were bound to land me a career one day to support our family for generations. I just had to keep acting. You could say this whole Battle Royale thing sort of saved me life".

"But you're going to die", Rory pointed out.

Roxy grinned. "Call it crazy, but I'd rather die than get back on stage and recite a bunch of lines and move my face around. I think I finally know who I am now. You guys probably think I'm crazy. I told Mare all of this and she thought I was nuts. And she's one of my best friends. What do you think?"

Zane shrugged. "Whatever makes you happy, I guess. I never liked plays anyway. It's weird, but I always get creeped out whenever I walk into a theater. Especially the old Victorian ones".

"Plays were great for awhile", Roxy sighed. "Then all the plots just blended toge-

"Your shift's up Preston!" a deep voice called.

The delinquent, actress, and mascot all stretched their necks to see the large and pimply figure of Eddie Dunnerman (Boy #4) strutting up behind them gleaming in his football jersey. Although he unbelievably didn't suffer from any mental disorders, barely able to get out of special education with a note from his parents, he was just dumb. There wasn't any other way to put it. Sizing the three up, Chris was strong, Eddie was dumb, and Preston was a coward.

"Chris wants you over there", Eddie barked. "He says he remembered a scene from a movie where somebody gets their jaw cracked in by someone swinging a rifle and he wants to test it out in real life. You're the guinea pig, man".

As Preston shuddered and hugged himself, Roxy stared up at Eddie with sympathetic eyes. Since the attempted rape that she had received upon arriving, it was the first time she had truly shown any sign of emotion. Come to think of it, despite being an actress, Zane realized that Roxy had never really shown much emotion to begin with anyway.

"But you don't have to listen to Chris", Roxy said. "What has he done for you besides tell you to hurt other people? He doesn't respect you; he uses you. You're basically handing him luck on a silver platter until it comes down to the two of you and he blows your brains out".

"Chris is my friend!" Eddie snapped. "I would know that, _bitch_!"

"You're nothing to him though", Roxy sighed. "Nobody deserves the shit that he deals out. You may be almost as bad as him but the best way we can flip this whole thing around is if we take out the key players. You might be as strong as him and you might have a chance of taking him out. How long have you been second-rate under him?"

Eddie growled. "You're just trying to trick me!"

"Just mull it over and make a decision. You either free us and take him out or die a coward. That goes for you too Preston. It's your choice".

Like always, Eddie's permanently stupid face was indistinguishable. However, if there was any good outcome of Roxy's argument it was what seemed to be going on his eyes. They seemed to be planning…calculating…_deciding…_

Shaking his head a she glanced at Eddie, Zane sighed and turned back to the mascot of the Spanish Rivers Sultans.

"How'd you get involved with them anyway, Preston?"

"Well, it's a long, _long_ story", Preston sighed. "But let's just say they're the closest thing I've ever had to friends. People really don't want to be around me…"

"That's probably because you can't stand up for yourself", Roxy said. "When people see a bad first impression, they usually keep it".

"Speaking of bad impressions", Rory began. "What do you think happened to J.C, Zane?"

"She went batshit crazy, thought I murdered two of our closest friends, and took off to god-knows-where. What the hell do you think happened to her?" He paused for a moment. "I love J.C. It's just…she can't take care of herself. She's tough but she's just not built for something like this. That's why I have to find her. You might all think she's a bitch and a whore but you really have to know her. There's a lot more to her. Just promise me that if you see her, you'll get her head straight on what happened".

"I promise", Roxy said.

"Me too", Preston said reluctantly.

"I would too but I can't", Rory sighed. "It's time Zane. Remember what I said earlier?"

"Wait _what_?'

"I made a vow to die. Better to die suddenly than go out cold and shivering. I'm giving the bigwigs in that school the finger the best way I can. Blood and guts it what they want, and they're definitely going to get it. Look at me for Christ's sake! My face is sweaty and my heart's probably going to give out soon. Anyway, it's time".

And with that, choking up one of the last breaths he had, the sweaty, ill, and defeated mess that as Rory managed to choke out a single word that bellowed across the entire bog.

_"CHRIS!"_

Within a minute, Chris had dashed across the campsite. The moment he reached them, he pointed the sniper rifle outward, aiming it directly at the back of Rory's head. Breathing hard with a maniacal grin on his face, he said:

"You called?

"I just want to ask you a few questions", Rory choked out. "What's your plan to get out of this?"

For a second, Chris seemed slightly taken aback. He loosened the grip on the rifle in his hands. "Is that what you called me over here for?'

"Yep", Rory said. "All I want is to know is what your plan is. And not just for this whole Battle Royale thing. I want to know what your plan for life was before this whole thing started".

"Well", Chris said, uncertain at first but regaining his confidence. "Well, my plan was layed out right in front of me. Football scholarship, off to college, and after that, off to the big teams".

"So you were going to get through life hitting people on a field?" Rory rasped.

"Huh?"

"You run on hate, Chris. That's all that fuels you. You don't feel any remorse for anything you do. People like you are going to die cold and alone. You pick on the weak because you don't like yourself. You put friends against friends because you don't have any to begin with. You hate the world and the world hates you back".

Chris, for the first time, looked frightened. "SHUT UP!"

Rory grinned. "Oh, I'm just getting started. Pull the trigger, Chris. I'm daring you. Show me that you're serious and not just messing around".

"SHUT UP YOU DAMN _STONER_!"

Chris's large and bulbous finger was trembling like a jackhammer at the weapon's trigger. The millisecond before it happened, the moment before it was over, Zane finally realized how Rory's entire plan fell together. At the same millisecond, he realized that he was too late to stop his group from being reduced to two.

Rory smiled one last time. "Goodbye Z-

With the accidental click of a trigger, the head of the pothead of Zane's gang exploded. Bone fragments and brain matter splattered the two other captives (causing Roxy to squeal and squirm in her bindings). His pale hands clawed in the air, almost struggling to cling onto the last few seconds of his life as his body quickly began to shut down.

"SEE!" Chris roared, his words proud but his eyes uncertain. "_SEE! NOBODY MESSES WITH ME_!"

The contents of an Italian restaurant were dripping out of the former head of his friend, making any trace of a human being once occupying it completely impossible to trace. As the wind blew through the bog, it passed Rory's corpse, bringing his smell, the fresh smell of marijuana and various other drugs, through Zane's nostrils.

"_This is what you wanted, man_", Zane thought. "_God, this is exactly what you wanted_".

Falling to the ground limply, the sack of flesh and brains that had once been Rory North landed roughly on the wet floor of the bog. The fresh smell of marijuana smoke was still in the air, almost like a makeshift tombstone.

And as Chris rushed to the other side of the bog in triumpth and terror, Roxy whimpered, and Eddie stared dumbfounded, Zane realized had witnessed the first murder in his life. It definitely wouldn't be the last either. He refused to take a trip down memory lane of Rory North. Getting drugs from him under the bleachers, harassing middle schoolers at the movie theatres, and generally screwing around, he had been a decent friend. Along with that, upon entering the Battle Royale, Zane realized he was an incredible person as well. Unintentionally, the gang had died on itself, leaving only but two alive. _And one thought the other was murderer._

And as the chaos that had just occured in the bloody bog echoed across the entire island of Cuna Cielo, the most unlikely candidate of death.

"Zane?" Preston whispered softly.

"Yeah..."

Preston bit his blue and cold lips and said:

"Chris is going down".

* * *

Chris, at the height of his success in the Battle Royale, was proud to be an American citizen.

Sitting on the log as he surveyed the bog, he did his best to look impressive. The sobs of Zane had died out, and now, he was strangely quiet, along with the others. Preston switching sides was no real loss in the end. After all, when the competition narrowed down to Preston, Eddie, and himself, he had planned to unload all of his remaining ammunition into both of their skulls, so it was just more cannon fodder in the end.

Humming, he sniffed the blood in the air. Rory's death had been meaningless. The damn hippy had always gotten high under the bleachers during football practice and had made the air smell like shit for Chris's entire team. Good riddance. He'd even egged Chris into killing him for Christ's sake! Rory North now contributed more to society as a pile of brains than the waste of flesh he'd been before. Killing him was like swatting a bug. The only problem was that more bugs tended to follow.

Listening to the sounds of the night and the dying sounds of Roxy sniffling Chris hummed into the night. He drummed his fingers on Zane's sniper rifle, struggling to calm his nerves. He was the splitting image of somebody who deserved to win this. With sandy-blonde hair, rippling muscles, and a golden smile, he was the very image of an American teen. Above everyone else, Chris put the prospect of fame, fortune, and acceptance far above saving his own life.

Chris's father, Dan Barrister, was the coach of the Spanish Rivers Sultans, one of Oklahoma's most celebrated and revered high school football teams. From an early age, Chris had been raised to destroy any trace of weakness. Not participating in a sport was like a sin, and in his father's words, "you paid for it". It was a good frame to live a healthy and life of high self-esteem and power, and now, even in the Battle Royale, he was at the top of the world.

_Still…_

He'd never killed someone before. It had been hard enough to pull the trigger, but after Rory had died, he realized that it had been a human being that had feelings and thoughts just like him. Charles Darwin, naturalist and role model, had explained through evolution that only the strong ones carried on. Chris needed to survive. He needed to be carried on for generations. Most of all, he needed to make his family, his dad and his legion of brothers (that had all been accepted with sports scholarships to various colleges), proud.

"You sure got em' good, Chris!"

Chris rolled his eyes as Eddie sat down beside him. Pimply with an overbite and hardly able to put two words together, he was a decent lackey. It wasn't that he actually suffered from anything mentally, surprisingly coming off as completely normal in his many visits to his doctor, but he was just as stupid as stupid could get. Still, despite how slow he was, there would always be times when he would think for himself and question his leader. And those were the times when Chris would calmly kick his ass.

"It's all over the place", Eddie said, eyeing the spot where the stoner had died. "Do you want me to call Preston over to clean it up? It's really gross".

"Leave the brains there", Chris ordered. 'It'll scare them even more. I want Zane to gag".

Eddie shrugged. "I guess so. Maybe you might've scared em' enough though. If you keep going you might frighten em' too much. Maybe it's better to just lay off a little".

"My decision, man. I'm keeping them until the bugs start picking them clean. If we're lucky, we might get more people to wander in here. Once we have enough, we wipe them all out. If we just have those three over there in the next few hours, we just wipe them out and move out of here. That's our plan for now".

"Well", Eddie began. "Don't you think it'd be a good idea to lay off them just a little? Nobody deserves what you're giving them".

Chris laughed. "Why? We have a virgin drama chick, a revolutionary badass, and Preston. They're all easy picking in the end. Zane doesn't even have much of a face anymore, so he's not much of a contender to begin with".

"But-

"Shut up, Dunnerman. You have no clue what you're talking about. I run the show around here, not you".

Eddie glared. "Or at least you did".

The words had come out of nowhere. Although there were definitely times when Eddie would show backbone, he had never stood up for a large group of people like this before. He was his lackey, and if he had decided to finally grow some balls now, he had picked a pretty bad time.

"Are you standing up to me, Eddie?" Chris asked uncertainly.

"What do you think I'm doing, Chris? I'm fucking sick of the way you think you own everyone you see under you. Just because you take drugs to make you stronger than everyone doesn't mean you are. Just because you're dad says you're the top of the world doesn't mean you are. You know what you really _are_, Chris? You're weak". Eddie's words were racing out of his mouth, not even bothering to chose them carefully. You can do as many push-ups as you want and tackle as many teams to the ground as you want, but you're still weak. It's what you'll always going to be".

"You're a dumbass", Chris snapped. He tried to sound in charge but he was terrified that Eddie was digging into his weakness. "You're lucky I let you tag along with me instead of just leaving you for dead. You're a follower. Stay as a follower and you might live a little longer. Look over at the mess over there to see what happens when you screw around with me".

"I don't care".

Chris, with the little confidence he had left, gave an intimidating smile. "You should".

"Well, I do-

"_SHUT UP!"_

Chris shifted his weight into the rifle, aiming it at Eddie's greasy and acne-covered face. His eyes expanded in fear, and somehow, all of the courage that had built up inside him ended. Cowering in fear, he retreated backwards as Chris's finger, the same one that had just caused a murder, trembled on the trigger.

"Listen you useless douchebag", Chris barked. "You were never going to amount to anything. Nobody on this island was. It' s me! _Only me_! Do you understand? You listen to me, you respect me, and if you're lucky, you might follow me out of here! I'm just doing my job, Eddie. I'm weeding out the gene pool. The weak die and the strong win. Darwin said that".

"Screw Darwin", Eddie snapped. "Stop repeating the coach's speeches and take that goddamned thing away from my face".

"I could kill you".

"Kill me. You killed Rory because you wanted to impress Preston and me. I figured it all out. Killing me won't impress Preston; it'll just add fuel to the fire. If I'm down, it's basically one against three. You against Preston, Roxy, and Zane. He's not going to listen to you anymore. That's what Zane sai-

Chris smashed the butt of the rifle into his lackey's nose, shattering it and breaking cartilage and bone. In a daze, but still very much alive, Eddie's eyes rolled to the back of his head with the blood pumping out like a pair of twin hoses from his nostrils. Disoriented, he stumbled backwards, his unfocused eyes still somehow locked on the person that he had considered his leader until moments ago.

"My 'acee….", Eddie choked. "My 'aceeee…"

"You'll die of blood loss and a infection that'll probably spread to your brain", Chris explained. "It'll take a day at the most. Nobody will care. Lay down and step out of my way. You had your chance and you blew it big time, man".

Sobbing, Eddie fell limply onto the floor of the bog like a curled fetus as Chris walked forward with the sniper rifle. Zane, who had been sobbing before, now looked serious as he talked seriously with Roxy and Preston, both of whom looked hesitant but mildly interested in what he had to say. Making eye contact with Zane as he passed, he watched the class delinquent eye the corpse of his friend before staring with doll's eyes as Chris.

"_Now they're all turning against you_", Chris's dad spoke in his mind. "_What are you going to do? What do you do when the weak turn against you_?'

"_You crush them_", Chris answered. "_You crush them good, coach"._

"_And what do you do when they fight back?'_

"_You crush them harder"._

"_WHAT TEAM?"_

"_SULTANS!'_

"_WHAT TEAM?'_

"_SULTANS!"_

There was no use denying it. He had lost all of the authority that he had once had over the group. For the rest of the competition, if he managed to make it that long, it would be him against the plan that the others were obviously formulating. He'd crushed them and flush out the gene pool, just like the way he had been raised to. Cowards and weaklings died while the strong ones, the ones that were destined to carry onto the next generation, prevailed. All that had seemed like the way to go, but now, it was hopeless. If he wanted to get out now, he would have to think.

He couldn't kill them all. It had been tough enough to kill Rory. Pulling the trigger, in the end, had simply been an accident that he had presented as intentional. He may have been the king, he may have been a winner, but he couldn't kill again. He just couldn't..

"_I've won everything else, Dad",_ Chris thought. _"Why can't I win this?"_

For the only time in his entire life, Chris Barrister (Boy #2) was unsure of himself.

* * *

**Eliminated**

**(Boy #13) North, Rory**

* * *

**29 Students Remaining**


	24. Day 1: Hour 22: 29 Students Remaining

_He was a fighter._

That was assured. Growing up in a lower class family and fully aware that the world wasn't going to lend out a hand to you, he realized at an early age that fending for himself was the only option. In a world that was falling apart, it was more important than ever to realize who you were and who you were going to be. You needed an identity, you needed people that had your back, and you needed to be willing to not back down without a fight. If you didn't have that, well, there wasn't much else but to give in.

And even though it was cliché, ironic, and downright pathetic in his opinion, David Rodriguez (Boy #14) didn't like to hurt people.

Drumming the water bottles on his knees, the boy sat on the edge of the tram station and let his feet hang over the forest canopy. Having spent most of the day stripping down metal, foraging supplies, and fingering with wiring that had thankfully not electrocuted him, it was good to find some level of peace in the world; even if the world was the reason they were on the island in the first place.

From the very beginning, even when he had left the school with a semi-automatic pistol, he knew the entire situation was hopeless. Even if he had that fighting instinct back in Spanish Rivers (once putting a sophomore in a neck brace for fifty bucks) it was much different here. Sure, the peer pressure in school weighing down on you was the same here with the aspect of your best friends betraying you at every corner, but this was a game of life or death. The Battle Royale, in David's opinion, was another failed way for the media to publicize violence and profit off it. And violence was everywhere these days. When the newspaper came on his doorstep in the morning, usually full of stories of terrorists bombing cities, he kicked it off and let it rot in the rain. When football was on, he changed the channel to something preferably different than guys crushing eachother. Killing anyone, or even injuring them for that matter, just wasn't right.

He didn't like to hurt people. It just sort of happened. His fists just tended to act before his brain.

"Are you sure it's safe to keep the lights on like this?" David asked his friend.

Miguel Chavez (Boy #3) was gazing up at the stars above their canopy haven as he lay on his back. His flashlight was hanging loosely at his side, shooting up a blue ray of particles that danced in the trees. Miguel had always seemed kind of distant and pre-occupied as a leader, but everything aside, he was smart. Smart enough for David to trust him sublimely without a second thought.

"We're up in trees", Miguel answered. "Even if they see our flashlight they probably won't figure out how the hell we got here". He paused. "I don't like the dark".

David grinned. "Miguel Chavez, the self-proclaimed badass motherfucker of Spanish Rivers High, needs a nightlight to go to bed?"

"It's not like that", Miguel cut in. "I always have weird dreams about the dark. Sometimes I'm just walking down the street and everything fades to black. Then people grab me from alleyways, drag me away by my legs, and start clawing me apart. I feel weak when it's night outside. Everyone has something they're scared of and for me it's the dark. What's wrong with being scared?"

"Nothing", David said. "Just sort of out-of-character. I'm not changing my mind about the flashlights though. We should really turn them off while we still have the chance".

"We're fine up here", his friend answered. "Trust me. Besides, if we stay up here and pretend we're hiding, everyone down in the school will get the impression that we're just sitting duck".

"They have microphones", David noted solemnly. "They can hear everything. Burke said so".

"It's an empty threat", Miguel explained. "The government can't infiltrate on any action that goes on during the program. They said there's no rules. We're technically not doing anything wrong until we actually send the tram over the school". He paused again. "I'm worried about when we actually do it though. We can't take on all of those soldiers by ourselves".

"How do you know all of this?"

"Well", he began. "You'll probably think I'm a sick twisted fuck but I was kind of into the whole Battle Royale thing. Reiki's grandpa was a really high bidder on the thing. He had the cable hookups and everything and let us watch it during the season. Not just the American game either. France, Belgium, England, Japan, and I think Australia but I'm not sure. I couldn't really tell what accents the kids had. Anyway, we would stay up all night, prank phone call people, and watch kids kill eachother. I just watched it for the violence. It's sick, but I guess you never really realize what you're watching until you're the one being watched".

David uneasily glanced over at the camera that he had noticed fastened to the tram station's wall. It had moved around since they had entered, tracking their every movement and recording it for the thrilled audience. Miguel had suggested putting one of their sweatshirts over it, but the moment he'd touched it, the machine had started beeping red light like a warning. With neither of the boys in the mood to get their heads blown off, the camera had stayed.

"Anyway", Miguel continued. "Why are you suddenly so interested in what's going on?"

"My life's on the line here", David pointed out. " And I've been thinking. Was there ever a game that pissed everyone off so much they didn't even like it?"

"Ricky Brombden", the boy said instantly, taking a chug from his water bottle.

David stared. "Who?"

"Um, Ricky Brombden". Miguel screwed the cap back onto the bottle. "He was the first one out in the battlefield a few years back. Apparently everyone in school had been giving him a lot of crap, and he wasn't inclined to take it much longer. The moment he got outside, he climbed on top of the building, cocked his rifle, and shot each kid as they walked outside under him. When he ran out of ammo on the rifle, he switched to a harpoon gun that was in some other kid's pack. In the twenty minutes it took to get everyone outside, he won the program".

"That's awful…"

"La ignorancia es atrevida", Miguel sighed. "The country treated him as a hero for just being a coward and making a quick decision that saved his life. Still, they were pissed though. They pretty much got cheated out of their precious game that year and half of the people who bid lost all of their money because their favorites died right away".

David paused. "What happened to him?"

"Ricky?" Miguel said. "He went the same way as every other winner. His fame died out, everyone forgot about him, and they got ready for the Battle Royale next year".

Shivering in the night, David tossed his empty water bottle out into the forest's canopy. Listening to the sound of the wind whistling on the plastic container, he glanced behind them at the smiling finger-painted face of Enrique. The painting had faded on the side of the tram through the day, but it was still clearly visible. All through the day, he'd been listening to the specifications for Miguel's tram bomb. Scavenging materials around the tram station, they hadn't found many explosives or flammables besides a can of spray paint. Despite Miguel's explanation that you could make bombs out of household materials anyway, there was still the ever-growing realization that there plan may not work.

"You know", Miguel said. "If we really want this to work, we might have to find some more people. The bigger our group is the bigger the chance we have of escaping".

"You don't mean that", he answered quickly. "People out there are fucked up in the head. Every last one of them".

"Not all of them. Sure, there's definitely a few basketcases out there but-

"A few? Are you kidding me? Almost a quarter of our class is dead. For all we know we could be the only ones who haven't decided to give in and play the game!"

Miguel glared. "Look, if we want to get out of here alive we need help. We can't pull this all off by ourselves!"

"I'd rather pull this off by myself and die then get cut off by some maniac we were stupid enough to trust! Look what happened to Reiki! You let him go outside and you let that girl bash his brains in!"

"Oh, so this all falls back on me, right?" Miguel roared. "It's all my fault?"

"It might as well be, jackass!" David spat. "You're the leader. You picked a really great time to fall apart on us! I'm not that smart, okay man? I thought I was dead out there the moment I left the school. Sure, I could've fought and racked up a body count, but you know that I can't do that. You're the one that lived in L.A all of those years anyway! Where's the idea? Where's the fucking plan? If it wasn't for your shit-brained idea to leave the mansion-

"You agreed with me!"

"Well, yeah, but you're the lead-

"I'm not a leader!" Miguel screamed.

The argument ended abruptly with an awkward silence between the two boys. Miguel was shaking with rage. Behind them, Enrique's finger-painted face was still smiling at them, almost mocking at the sheer realization that the close-knit relationship they had was falling apart.

"What's up with you man?" David said quietly. "It's like your hiding something".

And that was when, in the corner of his eye, he saw it.

"Miguel…"

His friend was still glaring. "What?"

"We have company".

Following David's downward gaze from the high perch of the tram station, Miguel could only let his jaw drop at the shadowy figure that had emerged from the bushes on the forest ground.

"I'm on it", David said quickly.

Before Miguel could even react, David's first nature, his violent instinct, kicked in. Jumping up and hurrying behind them, he rummaged through the drawers and metal-locked cabinets that filled the station, too frightened too be aware of his supplied pistol laying on the table behind him. The first thing he saw he seemed willing to grab to defend himself. Breaking open one of the rusty drawers, he pulled out a silver cylinder with a nozzle. A can of spray paint.

Turning back to his shocked friend, David gave a solemn nod, roared like an animal and dashed toward the ladder.

"DAVID WAIT!"

Powerless to do anything, Miguel sweared in rapid Spanish and dashed after his friend as he vanished into the darkness.

* * *

Besides blood, cluttered red hair, and a notable lack of any hope whatsoever, the girl saw light.

Unknowingly standing in the forest just below the tram station, she'd been slightly confused when a plastic water bottle had fallen from the canopy and hit her on the nose. Upon further investigation, she'd heard the sound of arguing coming from the forest canopy. And with that, she'd discovered the structure of pinewood that was the tram station.

Stumbling forward through the thorny bushes and cradling her arm, the girl couldn't help but smile as she dashed forward. _To safety…To change…to resc-_

* * *

"DAVID!"

Miguel reached the bottom of the ladder just in time to watch the chaos unfold. Holding the can of spray paint out like an idiot, David was standing at the foot of one of the station's pillars with his eyes wide as the scraggly-looking figure approached him. It had appeared to dawn on him that he'd picked the most useless object to defend himself with. However, before the figure could even make a movement, nontheless attack him, the boy dug his finger into his pocket and pulled out a small and silver square that glowed faintly in the moonlight. _His cigarette lighter._

Roaring into the night, David Rodriguez (Boy #14) flicked it and lit a single flame that shone in the darkness. However, it was quickly silenced when it he sprayed the nozzle of the paint. In almost an instant, a jetstream of flames shot out at the figure, fully engulfing the upper portion of its head in a fiery blaze. The stranger shrieked and stumbled backwards, swiping its hands wildly at the air. Doing an awkward somersault, the fire lit up the face just enough time for Miguel to see who it was.

"DAVID, LEAVE HER ALONE!"

The inflamed figure ran toward them shrieking, causing both of them to back into the wall in panic. Part of Miguel had the urge to run out and help the girl, but David's speech about paranoia and people turning on you had seemed to have gotten to him. All he could do was stare awestruck as the flaming girl danced and spun in front of them with her flailing hands in the air.

"ITHURTS…" she screamed. "_ITHURTSITHURTSITHURTS!"_

Without another world, the figure that was now identifiably J.C Brooke (Girl #1) wailed one final time before dashing back through the path she had come through the forest. As she pushed her way through the bushes, now screaming in agony as the fire presumably began to burn her scalp, she dashed through the trees and out of sight. Finally, when she was just a faint hue of orange in the distance, there was nothing but an eerie silence.

Shaking from head to toe, David let the can of spray paint fall to his feet as he stared through the forest. With the intruder gone, the peaceful night had returned and seemed to be mocking and pretending that he hadn't just lit a classmate on fire with a nozzle of spray paint. Dropping both the lighter and paint can to the ground, he turned to his friend.

"Is…Is she dead?"

"God knows", Miguel said with his lip still trembling. "If she doesn't find a way to put out that fire she's a goner".

Backed against the ladder to the upper level of the station, Miguel was staring down at the ground. Although he had always been sort of edgy-looking, his entrance to the Battle Royale had turned him into what looked like a paranoid mess. Just the way his eyes moved made David question the fact that he had once considered this boy his best friend, nontheless someone he looked up to.

"You're hiding something man", David said suspiciously. "And if you want to die knowing you didn't talk to anyone about it, that's fine with me".

"My secrets are my buisness", Miguel said. "And if I was keeping anything from you, I would have my reasons".

As Miguel started back up the ladder, David stared down at the can of spray paint and the lighter. The last few minutes had moved with an odd sense of hyper-reality. He'd seen somebody in the bushes, his mind had thought up the worst scenario possible, and he'd simply attacked. The nature inside him, the violent nature was like a monster. It took over before he had a chance to even think, and before he knew it, somebody was on the floor bleeding. He didn't want to hurt people. He hadn't wanted to burn J.C. It had just sort of happened.

Stepping on the cigarette lighter and not as hopeful as before, David Rodriguez (Boy #14) started back up the ladder to the tram station.

* * *

_My hair…My hair…My hair…_

J.C Brooke (Girl #1) wasn't in the greatest of spirits during the twenty-second hour of the Battle Royale. Besides the fact that her left arm may have been broken and her body was covered with life threatening wounds, her entire head of red hair had been completely singed down to the scalp. Although by some miracle she had managed to put it out (courtesy to the wet leaves and rain-softened forest ground) nearly half of the hair on her head had been burned off. To most this wouldn't be a great deal, but to her it was. If there was one thing she was proud of, it was her hair. It had made her a standout girl in the yearbooks, and all of that conditioner had just gone down the drain. Still, there was more to it then that. Hair was one of the few things that you identified people with. It made them who they were. _Why don't you just cut off all of my hair before you let us out of the school? Make us all look the same? Not give a shit about who we are? De-humanize us even more? Shouldn't I be caring about something else?_

Hunched over on the wet ground and feeling the smoke still rising from her singed scalp, J.C vomited bread rolls and scavenged berries all over the ground. Staring into the puddle of leaves and dirty water she was kneeling in, she made out the faint reflection of her face in the dark moonlight. A human skeleton with tired eyes that were going to get much more tired soon enough. Tattered clothes covered in blood and grime. The thick smell of burned ash coming from her skin. All in all, she was a mess.

It just didn't make any sense. All she had done was run forward to Miguel and David to join their group, and they'd lit her on fire. Well, technically David had lit the spray paint while Miguel had simply stood screaming in the background, but he still hadn't done anything to stop his friend. The entire world, or at the least the island, was going mad.

Out of everything she had seen from wandering in the last several hours, the one thing that had haunted her were the bodies. Meyerhold's corpse in the church with his testicles broken open like a piñata. What remained of Mae's head reduced to a bloody ash by her collar. Enrique's head cracked open with his brains spewed out across the artificial grass on the mansion's lawn. Still, what was even more haunting than the dead were the people that seemed to be walking around in a zombie-like state. Adam hunched over in the middle of a trail and examining something on the ground with excited and wild eyes. Winston gurgling on his throat and running to nowhere in particular. Jude laying against a tree and flipping through a packet of papers with a malevolent grin on his face. In just one day, they had become savages.

Even the ones that had never seemed like they had the motivation to….

_God damn it Zane…_

So far, Skylar and Jesse were dead. She wasn't sure about Zane and Rory, but if there was person she was positive about, it was her. Dead in the water the moment the group separated, running had been the best option. Just keep running and ignore the fact that your friends, the best friends you've ever known, are dying on you.

What really felt awful was that she'd had some great times with the four of them too. Breaking into that abandoned village up in the mountains to light off those fireworks. Using the empty dock near the rivers by Jesse's house as a place to grafitti. Still, she couldn't remember the good times without bringing up the bad. The riot that had happened that summer was something she would rather have forgotten about.

Shivering in the cold, J.C couldn't help but wonder about the deaths of two of her closest friends in the entire world. Skylar and Jesse's deaths had unintentionally broken up the gang and sent them running frantically in different directions. All day she'd been confident in her assumption that Zane had killed them after that heated argument, but now that she was alone in the dark with her thoughts, the entire situation was so much more real. She could try to put up the image of the tough girl who screwed people over at home, but now, the bitter truth dawned on her. In a game like this, she was a coward. Especially when she felt the need to leech onto other people to survive. Her entire life had essentially been an image of mascara and eyeliner that had distanced people away from her. An image. A costume. A disguise.

And that was why she had run from the murder scene of two of her closest friends.

Maybe she was just blaming him for her own problems. Maybe she hadn't really run because she thought Zane killed them. Maybe it was just the sad fact that she couldn't bring herself to trust anyone but herself…

"_And look where that got me….",_ she thought bitterly.

Stomping through the puddle and determined to survive, the girl remained content with the fact that she had survived an entire day in the most brutal game in history.

* * *

"E4!"

"E4"

"E4"

The black-haired girl leapt up and down on the shore of the beach, repeating the strange phrase that she'd repeated every time the ship had passed. The government bidders on the deck, barely visible in the moonlight, had obviously been drinking. They were all screaming, laughing, yelling out bids, and chanting phrases. Some were holding up signs and banners. Although they were hardly visible in the night now, the girls had remembered several of them. "Ewing 08'", "America Roots for Jude", and, "Bury Em', Barrister!" had been the most popular. Still, not all were positive. Crude banners like "Die J.C!" and "Meyerhold Zemeckis Rots in Hell" had been alongside the others.

The one notable moment had come when a bidder, his tie undone and his face sweaty and red from drinking, had screamed for the girls on the beach to, "start showing their tits for the camera". Leaning out to far, he'd toppled over the railing and landed in the sea. Due to the chaos and noise that was going on on the deck, none of the other bidders had seemed to have cared.

Still, no matter what happened on the beach, Adrienne Spring (Girl #17) simply kept screaming toward the ship every time it came around the island.

"E4!"

"E4!"

"E4!"

However, on the other side of the beach and collapsed against a sand dune, Amber was only dimly aware of the fact that a ship was even passing. In the last several hours, every single aspect of her life had turned into complete agony.

"FUCK!"

"Hold still, Amber!" Shyla pleaded

"_ITHURTSITHURTSITHURTS_!"

With a sigh, Shyla soaked the bottle of salt water onto Amber's leg wound again, causing it to throb and cause the owner of the leg itself to scream in agony. All she had done was put weight on it. What could that have possibly done? After all, the bullet Adrienne had shot in the morning had only torn through the flesh; what could she possibly have done to make it hurt like this? It had been fine all day, and now, out of nowhere, someone had put lead poison in it when she wasn't looking. According to Shyla she had probably popped something inside, but all in all, it really didn't matter.

Aside from her leg, not much had changed in the last several hours. Adrienne, planning whatever she needed to be planning, would keep screaming mindlessly at the cruise ship every time it came around ("_E4! E4! E4!")._ Erin, crouched over the tide, was staring blankly into the tide as she washed her hands. Every so often Adrienne would spit out an order to Erin to which she would have no other choice but to comply. It was disgusting to watch. What was especially strange was the fact that Erin was rinsing her hands when they were completely clean.

How do dispose of Victoria's corpse had proved to be a problem. Although neither of the girls had wished to look at those still and blank eyes anymore, they had at least wanted to show her some amount of respect. Without much else to do, they'd simply folded her arms and placed her on the shoreline of the sea. She'd looked peaceful enough in the beginning, but now, mollusks and jellyfish-like amoebas from the ocean had clung to her from the tide and drifted under her wounds. It was hard to say whether moving her had been an insult or not.

"That bitch", Shyla growled as she glanced over at Adrienne. "What do you think she's yelling about?"

"Beats me", Amber said. She couldn't help but cringe at the wound. "Do you think I'll be a cripple?"

"I'll be surprised if any of us get out of here with even one limb attached", Shyla said. "Anyway, just don't put any pressure on it and we'll see where we get from there".

"I guess we weren't born to run after all", Amber laughed weakly.

"Yeah, so much for that", Shyla said with a smile. She screwed the cap back onto her supplied water bottle that was now drained of salt water. "Y'know, I've been thinking. Ever notice how elaborate everything's been lately?'

"Elaborate?"

"Well, it's like everything's been planned out from start to finish. Everything that could have possibly gone wrong went wrong. Adrienne going batshit insane and shooting you in the leg. Tori dying. Your leg getting infected from getting up and running. It's all so planned out".

"What? Like we're in a play?"

Shyla shrugged. "Sort of. Except Adrienne wrote it. I mean, look at her! She hasn't lost her cool at all! She's enjoying every minute of it because she knows what's going to happen next! It' s like she knew exactly what would happen the moment we got here".

Amber grinned. "Well, you've done a good job keeping your cool too then".

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you haven't turned into a deranged killer and you haven't seemed scared at all. Trust me, I have a lot of respect for anybody that can do that".

"I've just been trying to keep my head above water", Shyla said with a shrug. "I guess I'm just a stubborn survivor".

"If you keep going like this, you're going to survive", Amber said. "If I was a bidder, I'd definitely put all of the money I had on you".

"Right back at you for me", she said with a smile. "Nice job hanging in there".

"I'm shot in the leg and sitting duck", Amber laughed bitterly. "If it wasn't for the fact that the people on that boat are using us for eye candy, I'd probally have no money on me at all".

"You just don't know how to stand up for yourself. If we want to beat Adrienne, you're going to have to learn. The way you survive in this game is try not to get hurt and don't do anything stupid".

"Everything's been going your way so far then", Amber said.

"This isn't my way", Shyla said wistfully. "If this went my way we'd all be resting in a tent on the beach. Not this beach, but the beach that we all thought we were going to when we got on that bus. We'd all be eating smores we just warmed up in the campfire outside and nobody would be dead. Not even the ones that we might think deserve it now that we really know how they would act if their lives were on the line".

"That's all very nice", a cold voice said suddenly. "but I'd prefer if you didn't talk about me behind my back, Ryals".

Her blood running cold, Amber turned her to see Adrienne Spring (Girl #17) standing with the pistol pointed out at them. There was a time when the girl could have been called decent-looking to the population Spanish Rivers High, perhaps even beautiful to her ego, but the game had obviously taken its toll on her. Her jet black hair was now tangled and uncombed in the wind, the blood that has splattered from the gunshot to Victoria's head hadn't been cleaned off her shirt, and her face was covered in wet and grimy sand. In the back of her mind, Amber found herself wondering what _she_ looked like

"You're breaking the rules", Shyla said with her lip trembling. "The deal was you stay on your side and we stay on ours. Piss off".

"Relax", she said. "I'm not going to kill you. I'm leaving you all to do that on your own. I've actually come with a proposition. For you actually, Shyla".

"We don't want a proposition", Amber snapped. "How long have you been here Adrienne?"

"Well, I got tired of watching the pigs yelling at us on that boat a few minutes ago so I decided to stop by for a chat. Anyway, the deal isn't for you Amber. I'm not very fond of you at the moment and I'm surprised Shyla here is still considering you a friend. After all, that brick didn't throw itself. You're very clearly a murderer".

Amber glared. "Yeah, but I'm not the cold-hearted bitch who shot her in the face!"

"Victoria's death was a trivial thing that we can move on from", Adrienne said simply. "She's dead and we're not. Anyway, that's not what I came to talk to you about. As you've heard from the announcements Shyla, we're losing a lot of our classmates pretty quickly. I can tell both of you that things are going to change in the next few hours. If you're familiar with this game, you'd know that the second day is when there's usually the highest body count. It's the day where people really start to think about their chances of survival". She paused. "It's where that old-fashion, 'kill your best friend', mentality comes into play".

Shyla glared. "What's your point?"

"My point is that in the next few hours, friends are going to turn against friends. You're going to really start thinking about how easy it would be to plant that knife in your friend' s back. Have you ever been sitting on a bus and just thought about punching person sitting next to you in the face? Everyone has but nobody does it because it would be uncivilized and, in society's word for it, '_evil_' . They'll just walk out of the bus and call themselves sick in the head for even considering it. And that's why I'm inviting you to ditch Amber and come with me".

Shyla raised her eyebrow. "You must think I'm stupid".

"Everyone's stupid", Adrienne said. "If everyone was smart we wouldn't even be on this island in the first place. I'm just giving you the offer to leave when you feel like it. For all you know, you could be laying over there by Victoria at any second. I know you guys think I'm a manipulative physcopath. I've been listening. How do you know you Amber here isn't the same way?"

"Because Amber's not like you", Shyla said. "I wouldn't leave her if my life depended on it".

"Your life does depend on it", Adrienne said sadly. "Just think about my offer and mull it over. If you were smart like Erin you would-

"Wait a second", Amber cut in as she looked around. "Where _is_ Erin?"

* * *

_Gotta find him…Gotta find him…_

The words were all that were force Erin Thompson (Girl #19) through the weaving trees of the forest and away from the horrific beach where she'd had the misfortune to spend almost an entire twenty-four hours. Tori may have been dead but that was no reason for her motivation to live to simply stop and wait for death to come. Always a survivor and always lucky enough to dodge the bullet when it came, she'd seen Adrienne having her back turned and talking to the other girls as a get-out-of-jail free card. Walking slowly at first from the shore, she'd turned her walk into a frantic run as she dashed into the dark forest and vanished from the other girls' sight.

She'd come back for Amber and Shyla. She would have attempted to kill Adrienne too, but she knew the attempts would be futile. Spending almost an entire day with the girl, it was clear that she was very different from other people. With the ability to be outgoing and charismatic while somehow hiding her obviously deranged psyche, it was obvious to anyone that she needed to be killed. However, if there was one thing that frightened Erin in the world now, it was Adrienne Spring (Girl #17). Outside of the Battle Royale she had been likable enough, but it was now very clear that all of her efforts to be _friends_ with them had been much more than it seemed. Adrienne was a menace to society.

Still, there was another more personal matter that needed to be attended to before she returned to the beach. With luck, she would find the one person that had been her light at the end of the tunnel since the game began. Glancing up at the starry sky, the shady-looking girl smiled.

"Thanks".

The sky over Cuna Cielo didn't say anything back but that hardly mattered. Running faster than her legs could carry her, Erin relished the fact that she had succeeded.

* * *

**No Students Eliminated**

* * *

**29 Students Remaining**


	25. Day 1: Hour 23: 29 Students Remaining

"This really sucks…"

Peter Juntz (Boy #9) mumbled these words under his breath as he swat at the low branches with the machete. The night was like walking through a sweltering cloud, and if the boy stood still, he felt certain that the gnats swarming through the hot forest would eat the skin off his bone. Still, trying to concentrate on the task at hand, the boy sliced another branch so the AMC Gremlin could get through.

All in all, things had definitely gone downhill in the last several hours. Motivated by the concept of rebellion, both he and Logan had launched themselves into their revolution without even thinking it through. Armed only with a map, a car, and a machete, they'd driven off into the woods with high hopes to show everyone that their exodus from hell was just around the corner. Instead, they'd simply created even more problems for themselves.

When Logan had gone over the details of her venture from the junkyard to their campsite, she'd left out a few crucial pieces of information. Due to the fact that her arm looked like a wet, bloody rag more than anything else, she'd used one hand to steer herself gently around the island. Slow transportation was a good decision if you simply needed to get somewhere, but upon actually driving the car at its full-speed, Peter became aware that the AMC Gremlin was impossible to drive. Along with braking every so often for no reason, it repeatedly ended up being dented against the trees. The fact that they weren't conversant with their surroundings made it even worse. He tried to be an optimist, he tried to keep himself determined, but without any other way to put it, it really did suck.

Wiping sweat from his brows, Peter sighed and trudged back to the car waiting just behind him with the machete swaying at his side. For a second he fumbled with the car handle, too exhausted to even think of how a device like it worked, but he forced his way in and fell into the driver's seat. _God, this turning into a suicide mission for everyone, isn't it? _

Glancing over, he looked at his traveling companion. Barely fitting in the passenger seat, the eyes of Logan Spruce (Girl #18) were studying the map laid out on her lap. He knew he should have been worried due to the fact that she admittedly had failed an exam on topographic maps, but considering how willing she seemed to do anything, he decided to put his faith in her.

"How's it going?" Logan asked.

"Could be better", Peter said as he pulled a water bottle out of his backpack. "You?"

"I think I have an idea where we are but we might have to backtrack. I'm trying to find a good route to some of the bigger buildings where people might be hiding. The lighthouse is on the northern shore over there and I think there's a sheriff's office nearby". She paused. "Do you know we're terrorists right now?"

Peter stared. "What?"

"We're terrorists. Anyone who attempts to disrupt the activity within a Battle Royale is a terrorist. At least that's what they say".

"I'm not a terrorist", Peter said.

"According to them, you are", Logan replied. "There's all of those terrorist organizations out there these days. The Banshees. Nine Lives. Wild Seven. They're all trying to make a point but all they're doing is hurting the world even more without even realizing it". She paused. "I think I had a cousin once. Ben. I don't remember him much but I remember exactly what happened to him. He was a really smart guy. He was always talking about all of these different colleges that he was applying to".

Peter raised an eyebrow. "What happened to him?"

"He had to write a final essay in his senior year about how the government keeps the country going in an orderly fashion".

"Did he get a good grade?" Peter said with a small smile. The idea that the country was forcing their opinions onto the youth in such a ridiculous way made him feel a little bit better

"No. Just the opposite actually. He took out a pen and wrote, "MY GOVERNMENT LIES", in big, red letters across the paper and turned it in. The moment he got home from school that day, he burned every brochure for every college that he applied to in the fire pit behind his house. Around the same time, his English teacher turned his essay into the police. They came to his house in the middle of the night and drafted him into the military. For all I know, he could have be one of the soldiers behind the computers in the school right now. We could end up blowing him up".

At the mention of the kamikaze, Peter felt humiliated at the fact that he was feeling uneasy about the whole thing. Talking about death like it was commonplace all day; the fact that he had planned his own suicide was dawning on him. After all, what reason was there for him dying other than making a point to himself? The idea that he could end up standing on the dirt mound, covered in explosives, and change his mind was like a nightmare running through his mind.

"That sucks about your cousin", Peter said as he took a swig from his water bottle. "I read a survey that said one in four kids in America these days either have a relative that was drafted into the military or died in the program".

"I've been thinking of the real reason behind all of this", she replied. "And it's not population control or keeping youth rebellion low. They're just trying to scare us".

"If they wanted to scare us", Peter said. "They would just exterminate us all in electric chairs. They wouldn't make us fight to the death like gladiators".

"They're trying to reinforce everything they're saying", Logan replied. "About life being a game and everyone needing to separate from each other to fight for survival. They're trying to keep everyone away from each other. It's sick".

"Yeah but-OH SHIT!"

It all happened so fast. Leaning over to far to reach for the map, he'd accidentally knocked the balanced water bottle off the glove compartment. Hitting the side of the steering wheel, the lightly screwed cap broke off and let all of the water drown the map on his lap. For a few seconds, he could only stare at the wet rag that had once been there only hope for survival. He picked it up from his lap slowly, peeling it up like a wet napkin. For a second he thought that it was a joke, almost God over Cuna Cielo playing a practical joke on them, but reality caught up really quickly when he noticed the worst part.

"The Danger Zones!" Peter cried.

All of the coordinates and zones that he had been careful to copy were nothing more than runny ink on the paper. He tried to read them, but it was hopeless. The entire map had been drenched.

"Fuck..." Peter moaned as he slammed his head into the steering wheel. "Fuck!"

"It's okay", Logan said awkwardly. "We're okay".

Peter's eyes filled with rage. "_How can you say that_! How can you keep saying we're okay when we're getting closer to death every second? How can you possibly find anything happy in something like this! We're not okay! _Admit it_!" He felt tears falling down his face. Not willing to make eye contact with the girl, he sighed and stared down at the steering wheel. "Everyone always looks up to me to come up with a plan. I always have to be the one that has to get everyone out of trouble just because they think I know what I'm doing. The more I think about it, the only reason I'm so willing to die is so they'll have some other reason to like me besides being the cross-dresser who knows how to make explosives. They'll remember me as a person and not some kind of hero figure. I really, really don't want to be the revolutionary, Logan. I just want to save the people I care about and make a point in this fucked up world. Why the hell does everyone have to over-analyze everyone?"

He half-expected Logan to yell furiously at him, but instead, she wasn't even making eye contact with him anymore. She was staring at the steering wheel. Not just the steering wheel, but the device that could be activated by pressing in on the center of it.

"Peter, I respect everything that you just said", Logan said. To his surprise she was smiling. "And I think the real heroes are made by people who are like us who are just trying to make a little bit of a difference. But I have an idea".

Almost instantly, Peter realized what the fat girl was thinking of. Covering the steering wheel's horn with his arms, he glanced in panic at her.

"That's suicide!" he cried. "We'll send everyone on the island that's playing the game over here!"

"Or", Logan replied. "We could get help".

"It's just a death wish! We're going to end up getting ourselves killed! The only people who might be willing to come are the twins, and there's no way I'm risking their lives because we made a stupid mistake!"

"Peter, we're stranded in the middle of nowhere without a map", she continued. "For all we know, one step into the wrong sector could blow both of our heads off. If we don't get ourselves out of here, nobody's going to end up escaping. Calling for help is the only shot we've got. We're okay. Don't forget that. Even if you think we aren't, we are"

Peter paused. Feeling the world on his shoulders, he glanced around. At the branches they were unable to cut through. At the ruined, watery map. At Logan's confident eyes that looked terrified at the same time. It was a risk. On the other hand, it was the risk that was the only choice they had. A call for rebellion only needed a voice to be spoken. And then there was that sickly chance of them ending up on the next announcement.

But still…

"Peter?"

"Do it", the boy ordered.

Closing her eyes, Logan slammed a mighty hand into the center of the steering wheel and honked the horn. The sound blared across the entire island, alerting everyone of their presence. Even when an eerie dead silence followed, she didn't stop honking.

* * *

Luke Graystone (Boy #5) was relatively certain he was going to die.

He was having a hard time accepting it but the facts had been evident from the beginning. With a scrawny figure that looked like a good gust of wind would knock him over and a permanently frightened look on his face, he knew he should have been easy picking in the Battle Royale from the very beginning. _It's going to happen any minute. Why aren't I dead already?_

If there was one thing that was wrong with the boy, it was his inability to think for himself. In the face of chaos, he simply went with the side that kept him alive longer. It wasn't a question of morals. It was a question of life or death. If something was guaranteed to kill him, he stayed away. If something was guaranteed to save his life, he sided with it in an instant. Admittedly, he was a coward.

Laying on the cot in the hut and staring at the ceiling, he had half-listened for the last several hours to Mitch and Terry talking. As far as they were aware he was sleeping and as far as he was aware, they were both becoming the one-way ticket to his downfall. All through the day, the boy had had aspirations. One had been bashing in Mitch's head with a frying pan when they in the hut earlier. The other had been shooting Terry in the back when they were walking in the meadow.

But he didn't. If there was one thing Luke had learned to value in his complicated life, it was human nature. Even if the paths people took didn't make any sense, they were still human. People did awful things to each other. They betrayed each other. They lied to each other. In his case, they even condoned each other to death. But they were still human.

"_I'm not a murderer",_ the boy thought stiffly.

Luke's entrance into the harsh world of Battle Royale had actually begun roughly four months prior to everyone else. Every so often, he would still have nightmares about walking through the parking lot with the slip with his name on it in hand. The empty sign-up bucket had been sitting on the counter of the grocery store. Walking in, the boy had dropped in his name and taken one of the forms. It hadn't been an emotional moment. In fact, there had been no depth to it whatsoever. He'd signed up and left. _Great. Just like the doctor said._

He'd considered not coming to school on that fateful morning four months later. He really had. Tossing and turning in his bed the night before, he'd thought of documentaries on television about the program. When students on the final roster were absent, an all-out manhunt began that almost always resulted in the soldiers kidnapping or occasionally executing any runaway students. Terrified out of his mind, Luke had showed up.

And then he had been rendered comatose with a sleeping agent and become Boy #5

The next few hours had moved in a series of macabre snap shots. Smashing a Bible into Mitch's face and failing to rob him of his weapon. Dashing around the island and hearing gunshots that all seemed to be targeting him. Risa's corpse smiling that evil smile in the hut. Three nameless dead girls in the barn. The confession in the meadow…

_The meadow…_

That was when a few lies had slipped in. He hadn't meant to lie. He had just wanted to earn enough sympathy for them to stop Mitch from tearing at his throat for signing them up whenever he got the chance. His father hadn't harbored cocaine. In truth, the family business crab fishing business had gone bankrupt and his father had left both his family and the island due to his inability to make ends meet. Luke had always pictured his father as a spitting image of him: a coward who ran from his troubles. His mother had eventually pulled together enough money for them to relocate to

Mitch refused to trust anyone while Terry blindly put faith in everyone. Both paths, as the form they had given him had said, would lead to death. Not only their deaths, but his death as well. He pictured them like an anchor, dragging him farther and farther down until he wouldn't be able to get back up. It was true that they deserved to live, but after all, the survival instinct. Luke didn't just regret signing up. If he had the chance, he would have gone back the day he walked across that parking lot and shot himself in the head right there. At least that way he wouldn't have to deal with the guilt.

"_They're going to end up killing me",_ he thought. _"They don't have the first clue of what to do out here. Then again, look at yourself"_

And that was when Luke, along with practically every competitor on the island, heard the car horn.

It honked loud and clear, startling everyone in the hut and nearly making them all jump out of their skins. It didn't stop there either. Over and over, the sound blared across the island frantically. This wasn't an accident of someone accidentally running into a car either. As it honked over and over again and didn't stop, it only became clear that it was an attempt to rally everyone together. It was the beginning of a riot.

"It's a call for rebellion", Terry said in awe. "They're trying to get everyone together".

"It's not just any call for rebellion either", Mitch said as he hopped off the counter with Risa's pistol. "It's Peter".

"You sure? It could just be some maniac with a car".

"A maniac wouldn't have the common sense to keep honking the horn to get everyone together. If they really needed to kill everyone, they would go out and do it". He paused. "And there's only one person on this entire island who's either brave or stupid enough to do something like this".

"Peter?" Terry asked.

"Well, I'm not going to wait around for the next three days wondering if we all could have gotten away or not".

Shaking his hair, the boy made sure the pistol was loaded and began to walk hurriedly to the door that opened to the porch. He gave what looked like a cross between a grimace and a nod at Luke before turning away. To Luke, he looked like he was fully aware of how much of a risk they were taking.

Packing up her bag on the counter, Terry gave a sigh and swung it over her shoulders. She stood there for a second, contemplating how much of a chance they had of the call for rebellion really being what they thought it was. Then, biting her lip, she followed suit with Mitch and began to walk toward the front door. Halfway there though, she stopped and glanced at the boy laying on the cot.

"Coming Luke?" she asked with a forced smile.

Luke stared at the frizzy-haired girl with his life rolling behind him like dark wave. It was like being offered a death wish._ They're going to kill me. They're going to end up doing something stupid that will get me killed. Humans are still humans. Even if the things they do are awful they're still human. Why do I have to die just because I made a stupid mistake? God, I have to do something. I'm going to have to._

"Sure", he responded. "I'll be right there".

* * *

Trudging through the forest in the night, Jude Mercedes (Boy #11) clearly heard the call for rebellion sent by Logan Spruce (Girl #18) and Peter Juntz (Boy #9). However, considering his very contrasting opinions about what the game stood for compared to the occupants of the AMC Gremlin, he chose to ignore it. Besides, he was entertaining himself.

_Interesting._

That was all the boy could think as he flipped through the pages of charred files he'd found earlier. From medical to police records, every single meaningless fact about every other competitor seemed to be etched out on the paper before him. At first he'd viewed all of his classmates as similar, all working behind the curtain like mindless cogs to grow up into society, but he'd been wrong. Adrienne suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and delusions. Mae had been a child prodigy already looking into colleges. Terry was under what seemed like a bucketful of different medications. Mare had been sent to juvenile hall for involvement in a crime that he couldn't quite put together.

As his father would say, the papers were, "fuel". Fuel for his mind to wreck havoc on everyone else in the game. Jude preferred not to think about his father very often, seeing as he hated him just as much as he was a role model, but all in all, he was truly a mysterious person. In fact, he wasn't even his biological father. Jude's mother had been pregnant with triplets and alone in the world when she had fallen in love with a wealthy, respected psychologist. The man had been perfect for her. Handsome and charismatic, he seemed to know just the right thing to say to convince her to invite him into her broken life. That should have been her first clue.

The moment Jude, Prudence, and Sadie were born, the man had elevated Jude's mother's spirits even more by being an ideal father figure. Feeling like an angel had sent the man both her and her children, she was oblivious to the fact that things were far from perfect. She was unaware of the man's true intentions and the fact that a perfect family was the last thing on his mind.

As Jude grew older, the man became a more prominent and vocal figure in his life. He was a political loudmouth, always talking about whatever he felt wrong in the country. A young boy, Jude absorbed it all and never considered where the information was coming from. However, sometimes the man's opinions were almost frightening. He talked about how the country was killing itself and the end of the world was approaching. When Jude wanted to go outside, his father would put an icy hand on his shoulder and tell him that there was no time to play. He needed to learn.

The lessons began.

Jude's father hadn't wanted a family. For a reason he would never know, the man had simply wanted to warp the mind of a child. Taking him into his bedroom every day after school, he taught him about the inner workings of the human mind. How to manipulate others to your liking. How to see an entire life story just on a person's face. How people were becoming more and more wasteful every day. Jude grew out of childhood quickly because of those tutoring sessions. Learning everything there was to know about anything, he'd prided himself on knowing he could control anyone he wanted too.

"_It's like chess",_ his father had said. _"It's all a game. If you want to get what you want, you have to strategize. Take out the pawns"._

Mae and Demi. They had both been pawns. Viewing them like fresh meat instead of people, he'd forced himself into not feeling guilty when he finished off both of them. Guilt would just slow him down. Considering how Demi's name had not been in an announcement, he prided himself on the fact that she was probably suffering. He pictured the girl in the pile of her bloody intestines, growing paler and paler at every second. Both of these girls, in his eyes, had most likely never played chess.

Shuffling through the packet of secrets as he walked, he was thankfully able to stop thinking about his life when he realized that he had a file too. Rummaging through the packet of burned paper, he scanned the faces of the boring people and quickly flipped to his. A red-haired boy with hollow eyes staring into a camera lens. Ignoring the things he didn't want to read, the boy picked out random information. _Jude Randall Mercedes. Boy #11. Born on November 10__th. __Directly related to competitors Girl #8 and Girl #9. So this is all there is? No signs of being withdrawn? No medical reports? No signs of the incident? You hurt me bad, Dad. That thing with the cashier this summer. You got yourself into prison and left me to pick up the piece-_

Walking through the wet mud, Jude's inner monologue was halted abruptly when he slipped.

He struggled to balance himself, but with his hands flailing in the air, he tumbled down the wet slope in front of him. Smelling the stench of insects, mud, and acidic moss, he noted the fact that he was now in the center a bog. Feeling the world had turn-upside down and listening to the crickets, the boy couldn't help but feel humiliated. Playing the game all day, it was embarrassing that his first mistake had been tripping and falling on his face. _No more mistakes. You can't be like the rest of them._

Glancing up, Jude was only dimly aware of the shadowy figure that was now glancing down on him. At one point it had been Eddie Dunnerman (Boy #4), but now, it looked like a train wreck. Along with the fact that his nose was off center and his face was soaked in blood, his shirt had been stripped off and he was shivering in the cold. The look in his eyes was more of pity than authority.

"I'm sorry, man", Eddie whimpered. "but you're going to have to come with me..".

Sniffling, Eddie grasped Jude's leg with a powerful arm and began to drag him through the mud. The sharp rocks and bark sliced his arm, ripping his left sleeve cleanly from his shirt. Feeling the rocks becoming sparse, he realized he was being dragged into an open clearing. A dense knoll populated by wet, sunken-in land and morass trees, it looked like the one part of the island that time had forgot. As Eddie pulled him into the bog sobbing, Jude instantly took notice of the figure standing at the forest's edge. He held a sniper rifle carefully on Eddie, apparently sentient to the fact that the boy would run away at any chance he got.

"Who'd you bring?" Chris Barrister (Boy #2) barked. He was now aiming the sniper rifle directly at his lackey's head, but seeing how undaunted he looked, Jude guessed that this was something he was something he had grown accustomed to.

"Look yourself", Eddie said dully.

Pushing his friend out of the way, Chris peered down at his new captive. At the same time, Jude surveyed him right back. Piecing together both memories from school and his file, he put together what he knew. _He plays varsity because his dad is the coach. Thinks he's a ladies man. Probably get's pressure into doing well at home._

"You're the Mercedes kid!" Chris concluded. "The freak!'

"Everyone's a bit of a freak around these parts", Jude said. "but to go by your terms, I suppose I am".

Clearly not expecting this sort of answer, Chris glared and pushed the rifle directly down onto Jude's head. Knowing showing any reaction would only satisfy the boy, Jude merely kept staring.

"Everyone's got a smart mouth around here", Chris snapped. "Everyone thinks they can take control just because they feel like it. You see that pothead lying over there? He had a smart mouth. Look what happened to him".

Glancing over in the mud, Jude became aware that the foul smell of the bog was not only coming from the acidic water. The corpse of Rory North (Boy #13) was lying beside one of the morass trees, the wetness from the quagmire eating away at his eggshell of a face. Along with the departed competitor, he also took notice that there were other captives in the body. All circled around the body and tied down with what looked like duct tape and ripped clothing were Zane Barrens (Boy #1), Roxy Patterson (Girl #12), and Preston Tracy (Boy #18). They were all staring at him. Not remembering anything interesting enough from their files to care, Jude turned his focus back to Chris.

"You murdered him? Is that what you're trying to tell me?"

"Damn right I murdered him!" Chris roared. "And I'll do the same to you if you don't learn to shut your_ mouth_!"

"How did murder make you feel though?" Jude said with wide eyes. "My experiences were rather disappointing to say the least. I expected more of a feeling from it. I didn't feel any guilt afterwards. No pride. No emotion. All I saw was that I was staring at blood".

"Chris, maybe you should just stop", Eddie said worriedly. "You shouldn't be messing around with someone like him. I think we should just let him go and let him mind his own business".

"You think you know what you're talking about", Chris snapped. "You suddenly think just because someone told you that what you've been doing is wrong that you should run away. All of that good-natured philosophical bullshit? You don't need to swallow any of it, Eddie. What's the reason we were brought here today?"

"To kill eachother, Chris…"

"And in the name of our fathers who fought for our American freedom, we're going to do just that. Tie him up, Eddie. One more slip-up and you're going to be keeping the stoner company". Looking up at the linebacker's face, he grinned. "Your nose isn't looking too good".

Muttering something unintelligible under his breath, Eddie grabbed Jude's leg again and began to drag him toward the others near the sunken-in tree. Although he could only see the back of the boy's bloody head, Jude made sure to keep notes in his mind. _Linebacker on the football team. Not that bright. He wants to get out of here as soon as possible._

"I'm really sorry", Eddie said with a whimper. "but I just don't want to get hurt…"

Reaching the tree beside the others, he let Jude fall to the ground. Not seeming to care that the boy wasn't resisting at all, he tore hard at Jude's left sleeve still clinging to his shirt. Wrapping it in a tight knot around the boy's chest, binding him to the tree and almost choking him, Eddie limped away still sobbing like there was no tomorrow.

"_Things are going to get very interesting around here_", Jude thought placidly.

He was fully aware of the other captives still staring at him and whispering, but at that point, he was in no position to care. Glancing around, he took notice of all of them. Not just the people, but the life stories that could be told from their faces. The faces that very soon would tear each other apart.

Chris expression showing his fear of losing control at any second

Preston's eyes telling years of unrealized anger boiling inside him

Eddie's bloody ghost of a face showing how desperate he was to survive.

Zane slowly coming to the realization that anger wasn't going to get him anywhere

Roxy's blank grimace letting him know that she didn't know what to believe in anymore

And the boy that had been shrouded in the bushes for hours, fidgeting with the pistol in his hands and ready to strike at any moment…

Jude looked around, thanked his father, and set his mind to work.

* * *

Sadie Mercedes (Girl #9) wanted to believe in the call for rebellion. In fact, if it weren't for the two persistent factors that were holding her captive in the diner, she would have ran to whoever was brave enough to make the call with open arms. In spite of this, she knew that no matter how hard she could try to deceive herself, the two factors would restrain her from leaving.

The first factor was Prudence. Spending the majority of the day becoming a paranoid mess, she'd gone over lists of classmates that, "they should be watching out for". It didn't seem to have occurred to her to the girl that she'd named nearly everyone else in the entire class. The idea of her accepting an unanimous call that could be anything was almost laughable.

And then there was the second factor…

Glancing quickly at the sleeping body of Lea Passington (Girl #11) on the kitchen floor, Sadie shuddered and turned away. It was intimidating enough being in a room with a murderer, but the fact that Lea mumbled in her sleep made it even worse. Some of the sentences she'd said hadn't made sense, some had been frightening, and most of them had just been strange. Doing the best she could to ignore their hostage, Sadie glanced out the window of the diner wistfully. There were hunters in the trees. That she was sure of. People that she had once considered her friends at that very moment were watching each other bleed to death. The fact that everything had become so accepted made the girl feel even worse. _You have to stop trying to convince yourself girl. Things aren't ever going to go back._

Aside from the horn though, not much had changed in the diner in the last several hours aside from the fact that it was now booming with rock music from the jukebox. In an attempt to raise Sadie's spirits, Prudence had returned after rummaging through the cellar with a dusty Billy Joel album. As her sister returned to the cellar to take a nap, Sadie had slid in the record and, "Only The Good Die Young", had started playing. Realizing the horrible irony of the song, Sadie had been devastated when she realized that she didn't know how to turn off the ancient jukebox. Billy Joel has stayed.

"_So come on Virginia show me a sign",_ the record screeched. _"Send up a signal I'll throw you the line"._

"_I have to get out of here",_ Sadie thought. "_All we're doing here is sitting duck and waiting to think of a good idea. People are waiting for us out there. C'mon Pru. You were always the one with ideas. Then again, look at Nicole. She was a thinker too"._

Glancing back at the girl on the floor, Sadie's heart skipped a beat when she realized she was stirring. Opening her eyes, Lea glanced around for a moment like she had no clue what was going on. With recognition returning, she sat up from the floor groaning as she rubbed her head.

"Billy Joel?" the girl in a groggy voice.

"Yeah…", Sadie responded. "It was the only music we found down in the cellar that was almost from this century".

She refused to let herself make eye contact with the girl. Part of it was that she was still soaked in dried blood and grime, clearly showing what she'd been up to all day, but the other part was the truth

"You don't want to talk to me", Lea noted.

Sadie raised an eyebrow. "You've killed two people. Maybe more. I think not wanting to speak to a murderer is pretty damned justified".

"When two people are in a room", the girl responded. "It's human nature that they'll want to talk to each other. I don't think anything about their backgrounds or morals should come into question. It's healthy to socialize". She paused. "Where's the other one?'

"Prudence is sleeping downstairs is in the cellar", Sadie said. "Not calling her by her name doesn't make you seem high and mighty, you know".

"So let me get this straight", Lea said with a grin. "Your sister left you alone in the kitchen here with the, "_maniacal psychopath_", just so she could get herself a cat nap?"

Sadie couldn't help but smile back. "Look at your wrists".

Instant humiliation hit the girl's eyes when she glanced down at her arms. Tied around the handle of a cupboard, they were wrapped tightly together with what appeared to be plastic strippings from the end of a rake. And in the freshman class of Spanish Rivers High, there was only one girl who was strong enough to tear apart a rake.

"Your sister ties a good knot", Lea complimented as she tugged at her bindings. She could move her hands freely, but her palms had definitely lost blood flow from the tightness. "It's a Palomar if I'm not mistaken. Very powerful. Good for fishing hooks".

"I thought I said that I wasn't going to talk to you, Lea", Sadie snapped.

"Why is that, Sadie? Is it because you find my motives confusing? Is it because you can't stand looking into the eyes of someone who knows what they're doing?"

"No, it's actually because I think you're a complete sociopath. And if you knew what you were doing, I don't think you'd be held captive here".

Lea laughed. "I can leave any time I want. I'm enjoying myself here to be honest". She tugged at her bindings again. "Your sister seems to care a lot about you".

"What's your point?"

"Nothing. I'm just trying to grasp how it feels to know that someone is completely willing to take a bullet for you when all you're willing to do is walk over to a toilet and vomit your dinner out".

Sadie glared. "Are you questioning if I love my sister or not?"

"No. I just don't think you'd be able to die for her like she would for you. If she was bleeding on the ground and asking you to finish her off, I think you would run to save your own hide". She smiled brightly. "But that's just my personal prerogative".

"Has anyone ever told you that you talk too much?" Sadie snapped.

"Well, in case you haven't noticed", Lea replied. "I actually wasn't much of a social butterfly back at our high school. I spent most of my time reading. It's great fun. No matter how many times I read the words, all of the characters added up the same. There's so much you can learn from books, Sadie. Our government doesn't like us reading books because they give us ideas. But I read about it all. Society. Culture. I even read about religion sometimes to give myself a good laugh".

With a sigh, Sadie let her head rest beside the window. Along with having a thumping migraine in her head to add to her list of problems, she wasn't in the mood to listen to Lea. Her constant nit-picking at everything known to man was bad enough, but what aggravated her most about the girl was that her philosophies almost made sense. Before she had fallen asleep, she'd let her mind out about their government, Sadie's anorexia, their education system, and most disturbingly, their school and classmates. It was enough to make her head spin.

"Could you get me a glass of water, Sadie?" Lea asked.

"They gave us all water bottles".

"Well, I would still have mine if your sister didn't confiscate everything I worked for in this game. I'm asking for a glass of water. It's not much".

"If I give it to you will you shut up?"

Lea smirked. "Gladly".

Glancing into the girl's eyes, Sadie surveyed her. Her request was casual. There wasn't any deep meaning behind it. She just wanted a glass of water. Getting up from her perch and shaking her sleeping legs she walked, she hopped down from the counter.

Lea's words weren't what was making her feel hopeless. If anything, it was the entire situation dawning on her at once. Being a Mercedes had always been people judging you. Instead of being a ditzy blonde girl who starved herself at high school, what was stopping her from being one of the revolutionaries that made a difference in the game. What was stopping her from being somebody who went out into the battlefield and stitched wounds instead of fleeing to save her own hide? Sadie didn't want to die. That was assured. She didn't want to be a hero either. If anything, she wanted to make it clear that the government had taken too much. They'd censored their music, burned their books, and even begun to kill their friends. Nicole had always said that people really defined themselves when their friend's lives were on the line instead of their own. Full of thoughts in her aching head when she reached the sink, Sadie considered telling Prudence about the car horn again. Then her mind laughed at her.

"People take advantage of you", Lea said as she almost read her mind.

Rummaging through the cabinet above the sink, Sadie rolled her eyes. "You don't know the half of it".

"Actually", Lea said. "I have a pretty good idea".

It all happened so fast. The moment Sadie turned on the cold faucet, Lea kicked out her feet hard into the side of her legs. Toppling over, the frail girl made a surprisingly loud thud as she hit the kitchen floor on her knees. In a daze, she wasn't even able to comprehend what had happened before Lea struck again. Swinging back her forehead, she bashed it hard into Sadie's face. Instantly seeing what looked like bright headlights flash in front of her face, she felt warm and wet blood drip from her nose. _You just had to listen to her, didn't you girl?_

Bawled over on the floor and struggling to process what had just happened, Sadie was hardly aware of what had had happened when she fell. Swinging out her hands to balance herself, she'd banged herself hard into the counter and sent a vibration throughout the whole kitchen. With that the handsaw they had put out of Lea's reach had clattered noisily to the floor. The girl's face was delighted at this, clearly showing that it had been exactly what she wanted. Fumbling to pick up the handsaw in her tied hands, she started cutting.

Sadie's mind screamed at her to fight back, but despite the anger she felt, she couldn't. Even with adrenaline coursing through her, it was like invisible hands were on her shoulder. In Battle Royale, revolutionaries became conformists, thugs became peace-makers, but girls who spent their Friday nights vomiting out their dinner didn't become fighters. Nicole was wrong. It wasn't that she didn't want to take up the gauntlet against someone who had attacked her, but in a situation where she knew she would lose, she just couldn't force herself to do it. As customarily, Sadie took the pain.

"PRUDENCE!"

Howling out her sister's name, Sadie quickly mopped the warm blood off her face and dashed through the kitchen's doorway. In the corner of her eye, Lea was sawing away at her bindings. Weaving through the booths and tables, past the neon lights proclaiming, "Maury's Diner", and listening to the jukebox mock her, she sprinted toward the door that led to the cellar. Praying the knot her sister had tied with the plastic would prove tight enough, she practically through herself into the wooden door. Almost forgetting how something as simple as door knobs could work in the panic, she slammed her fists on the door.

"PRUDENCE! SHE'S OUT! SHE GOT OU-

With the sound of swishing air followed by a dull thud, she glanced up to see a handsaw embedded in the wooden door. Spinning around, she stared at horror at the diminutive figure of Lea Passington (Girl #11) standing in the kitchen doorway. Looking practically infernal with dried blood and grime covering her sweater and her assigned golf club in her hands, the girl looked with eyes that seemed to melt through her. There was circlet of plastic still around her wrist, but in the end, that didn't matter. Sawing through the handsaw with her manacled hands had obviously not been a big problem. She was out.

"You", Lea said. "Blame yourself for your own problems and hold yourself back from doing everything. You want people to feel bad for you, but in the end, all you're doing is hurting yourself by vomiting out your stomach into a toilet". She pointed an accusing golf club at her. "You, my dear classmate, are a _weed_".

Shaking with vehemence, the girl charged forward as she swung back the golf club. Suddenly finding everything in her body working perfectly, Sadie grabbed the door knob and swung the door to the cellar open. Running down the dark staircase, she didn't have time to slam the door before Lea whirled her golf club like a baseball bat. The blow narrowly missed her head as she threw herself down to the cold floor.

The cellar was musty and stacked with boxes of packaged food and junk. Rows and rows of sandbags lined the walls, bolted with wooden bars. It was clear that whoever had owned the diner had been a pack rat. Feeling lost in the dark room, Sadie's eyes found her sister. She was lying on a makeshift cot of sandbags in the corner. Perry's shotgun was curled up next to her like a dream catcher warding off bad spirits.

"PRUDENCE!"

The girl awoke instantly. Opening her eyes, she looked around with the same uncertainty that Lea had arisen. The drowsiness instantly wore off when her eyes took a good look around.

"SADIE, WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?" she screamed.

"I LET HER OUT!" Sadie shrieked. "I'M SORRY! I'M SO SORRY!"

Prudence's eyes widened "SADIE, LOOK OUT!"

Before she even processed that her sister had spoke, a golf club smashing into the side of her head sent her collapsing to the floor of the cellar. Feeling her right ear ringing in agony and knowing she would probably be deaf, she miraculously dodged Lea's second blow by rolling to her side in pain. She bubbled out blood from her mouth. In the midst of the chaos, all she could see was brief snap-shots of what was probably going on. Everything on the right side of her face turning red. Lea preparing to grind her head into the floor. Billy Joel blaring out of the jukebox upstairs.

"_This is really it",_ the girl thought placidly. _"This is my time"._

Suddenly, the sound of rapid gunfire entered the small room followed by Lea howling in pain. Prudence was standing up from the cot, firing away at the small girl with a look of fierce determination. Although one of the bullets had grazed her face rather badly, Lea had somehow emerged unscathed from the gunfire. If there was one thing that the shotgun had proved useful for though, it was a free opportunity: Lea's golf club had clattered to the floor when the bullet hit her face.

Reaching out her trembling fingers, Sadie grabbed the golf club and hugged it close to her. She knew she was immobile to do anything other than pray, but the least she could do was keep Lea from injuring her even more. With Lea sputtering out blood from her bleeding face, Sadie watched as her sister took the chance and rushed over to her with the shotgun. Angling the barrel with her head, Lea's face didn't change at all as Prudence prepared to pull the trigger.

"Shoot me", she hissed through the blood. "Go ahead".

Rolling forward, the girl ended up saving herself the new line of bullets by letting them graze down her back. The pain looked unbearable and the girl's face looked beyond agony, but this seemed like just what she had planned. Rolling under Prudence's legs, she dug her fingers hard into the muscular girl's stomach and sent her tumbling backwards into the wall. Sitting there for a second, the girl looked oblivious to what had just happened. For a second, Sadie didn't understand either. And then it all came together.

"You put up a good fight", Lea's cold voice said.

Forcing her bleeding body up from the ground, Lea reached a shaking hand up and pulled the board from the row of sandbags. With all of the heavy sacks crushing to the floor, Prudence was instantly buried under all of the weight. One bag hit the back of her neck hard, pushing her head forward and causing her to vanish completely under the beige sacks. Unable to tell if her sister could breathe or if she was even still alive, Sadie cursed herself for even considering fetching Lea a glass of water.

"Get up, Prudence", she whispered softly. "_C'mon…'_

The bags didn't move. Either unconscious or dead, the girl lay buried under the heavy sacks and cemented to the cold floor. It was a strange feeling. In different parts of the world, people were laughing. Other people were talking cheerfully to each other. How could they all be unaware of what was happening?

"I'd like to congratulate your sister", Lea said. "She put up a good fight. You on the other hand, are a different story. You'd be a good example to sets for the others. In fact, I have an idea".

Grabbing the bleeding girl by the loop of her jeans, she turned her attention toward the staircase and started dragging her. Surprisingly strong for a girl of her size, Lea dragged Sadie up the steps like a rag doll. Her head thudded the rungs, knocking her mind senselessly. Feeling memories bounce back and forth, she saw brief snippets of her life. _Elementary school birthday parties. Family gatherings. Rock concerts. One-hit wonders she'd heard on the radio. Dad in jail. Battle Royale. Nicole. Dirt. Blood. Sandbags._

As Lea reached the final step, Sadie had a sudden realization. She didn't have to die. She didn't feel like dying. So why did she have to? What was stopping her from saving her own hide? Was it repressed memories? Was it Nicole's peaceful philosophies being buried alive along with her? Whatever any philosophy said, this was life or death. Struggling to see through the blood, a hard bump on her spine told her that they'd reached the final floor of the steps.

"Hey bitch", Sadie spat.

Not knowing if Lea turned to look at her, Sadie dug her fingernails into the floor. The pain was immense and one nail even cleanly tore off from her finger, but she was able to pull herself across the waxy floor. Clinging her hand onto one of the booth's legs for dear life, she managed to shake herself from Lea's grasp. _Fightherfightherfighther…_

If their former captive was angry about her prey escaping, she didn't show it. Lea swung the golf club in a full arc, taking out half of the lights in the neon sign over the counter that proclaimed, "Maury's Diner". With electricity and metal shrapnel flying in every direction, Sadie ducked for her life from both the golf club and exploding sign. Taking her chance in the chaos (and praying Lea was as disoriented as she was) she turned around on the floor and began crawling down the aisle of tables. Feeling like she was running to light at the end of the tunnel, the girl ended up on her knees. Then one foot. Limping out of the diner with every pore of her body screaming in pain, she ended up on both legs by the time she reached the front door. Unaware of where Lea was, Sadie did her best not to scream and limped out into the night.

_"Get to the forest",_ she thought_. "Ignore the hunters. Just get out of here. Fight for yourself"_

In truth, Sadie made it roughly ten feet away from the woods before she felt something fiery slice itself into her back. At first she thought she had been shot, but when she finally made out the feeling of the shape imbedded in her back, she felt like fainting. A handsaw that had been sent through the air like a javelin all the way from the diner's doorway. It had imbedded itself through her skin.

Howling in despair, the ground met Sadie faster than she could breathe. With no more than three soft footsteps stomping through the mud, Lea's shadow rushed over to her. The girl was smiling. There was no way she could see her with her face buried in the earth, but she knew she was smiling. Reaching down with her brittle hands, she removed the handsaw with a delicate slicing sound that rang down Sadie's spine. Then the club's shadow rose into the air.

"_It's over",_ she thought in a daze. _"You tried, but it's over"._

Lea swayed the golf club into the air, ready to angle down on Sadie's head in a bone-shattering crunch. Closing her eyes, she prepared herself for the blow that would end her life. It didn't happen.

The front doors of the diner crashed open.

Charging out into the night with a shotgun and a face soaked in blood, Prudence Mercedes (Girl #8) looked like a macabre war veteran. With her signature bandanna tied around her stringy, bloody hair, it looked like traces of her former self were trying to show through. Snarling like a wild animal, the girl fired the weapon so rapidly that it was unclear who or what was getting hit.

Seeing the bullets fire in every direction, Lea didn't take to claim her third victim. Muttering something under her breath that Sadie couldn't understand, she took off into the woods with the golf club slung over her back and the handsaw swinging in her hand. Vanishing into the forest like the trees had engulfed her, she was gone. Gone to play the game. Gone to claim more victims. And it was all Sadie's fault.

Sighing into the mud, the girl realized part of her actually wanted to get up. Turning her head, she realized that Prudence was no longer standing in the doorway. She had vanished back into their hideaway. Forcing herself up onto her knees, she took inventory. Her right ear was ringing. Slapping her head against it, she got nothing. _Deaf in one ear._ Bringing up her fingers to her mouth, she withdrew several white stones. _Missing a few teeth._ Not willing to check the rest of the causality list, especially the newly acquired handsaw wound in her back, the frail girl somehow forced herself to get up. She was alive, that was assured, but in the end, she really didn't feel anything like she did before.

Limping back into the diner, the first thing she noticed was that the neon sign was flickering out on itself. With flailing plugs and electricity in every second, it looked like it would go out at any minute. She found Prudence right away. Sitting in one of the front booths, she was pressing her bandanna against her head in an effort to cushion the bleeding. The sandbags had done a great deal of damage to her head. As Sadie sat down next to her, she didn't even try to make eye contact. She just stared out into space.

"You can start the whole speech about not trusting anyone now", Sadie said softly.

Glancing up at her sister, Prudence looked at her like she'd just seen a ghost. She didn't respond.

"Someone was calling everyone together earlier", Sadie continued. "I decided it was best not to wake you up. I think I saw some kind of first-aid kit in the kitchen when I was rummaging through the drawers. We-

"Sadie", Prudence said. "I think I can say for sure now that every last one of us is going to die".

An awkward silence followed Prudence's revelation. Half-expecting Lea to barge back in and hack them to bits, the two girls of the Mercedes clan found themselves oddly comforted. Even with the distressing news they had just revealed to themselves, the idea that both of them had survived their first true battle in the game was a good feeling. A strange feeling that questioned what the Battle Royale was really about, but a good feeling nonetheless.

"What time is it?" Sadie asked softly.

Prudence checked her watch. "Almost midnight. One day down, two to go".

As the final neon light went out in a spark of fire, plunging the sisters into darkness, they could only listen to the less than comforting voice of Billy Joel carry them into the second day of the Battle Royale.

"_For things that you may have done…_

_Well, only the good die young…"_

* * *

**No Students Eliminated**

* * *

**29 Students Remaining**


	26. Day 1: Hour 24: 29 Students Remaining

As the second day of the Battle Royale dawned over Cuna Cielo, several things were certain. Friends would betray friends, families would betray families, and lovers would betray lovers. In just twenty-four hours, a high school class had become a de-humanized jungle where no rules remained. Some would use the rule-free game as an opportunity to kill, others would rebel against it, but most of them would just run to survive. If there was one thing that made sense on Cuna Cielo, it was to run. Run, don't trust, and don't stop. It was exactly what the government wanted them to do, and unfortunately, it was turning out to be one of the only tactic that worked. That was what the second day meant to the twenty-nine remaining competitors.

And for the four captives in the bog, it meant something else: _escape._

_

* * *

_

"This is a bad idea", Preston Tracy (Boy #18) said. "This is a really bad idea".

The boy sat hugging in his knees beside the muskeg tree. The night was cool. For some reason, this struck the captives as odd. Almost expecting a grand entrance into the second day, it was strange to only get the sound of the wind whistling through the forest as a response. The world should have been ending.

"Chill man", Zane Barrens (Boy #1) said in a hushed voice. "This isn't a bad idea. It's a good one, and it's going to end up saving all of us if we all just put some faith in it. Nobody's going to get hurt".

The four captives were circled around the sunken-in tree. Preston's back was to the rest of the group, almost frightened that staring into their eyes was a guaranteed death sentence. Eddie, his bloody nose concaved on his face, sat staring at the bog with blank eyes. Roxy was still tied up around the tree with Eddie's football jersey while Eddie himself, who had recently sat down beside them looking frightened out of his mind, sat next to her. Not having any bindings whatsoever to keep him from leaving the bog, the others wondered what was stopping him from just making a run for it. Zane's slowly deteriorating duct tape cocoon was still wrapped around him though. Although the water levels of the bog had wetted and ripped the tape enough for him to force a free arm out, it hadn't improved much. He could still hardly move a muscle.

"Nobody's going to get hurt, huh Zane?" Preston retorted. "Everyone remembers the last time people put faith in you, y'know. People didn't just get hurt".

Zane glared. "I'm gotten more than enough shit about what happened at the riot this summer than I'll need for the rest of my life. I don't want to spend the last two days thinking about something that's better off forgotten".

"Yeah", the mascot scoffed. "and if something goes wrong here, I guess that's better off forgotten too, right?"

"There's no way you can be thinking of pussying out now", Zane said coldly. "You said you were in on taking him down from the very beginning".

"Yeah well, I'm iffy about it now. What's this going to accomplish besides more bodies?"

"It's going to get us out of here", a new voice said.

The two boys turned to face Roxy Patterson (Girl #12). Appearing almost catatonic since the Rory incident, she'd mostly remained silent and only nodded briefly during the discussion of their plan. Considering how visibly shaken up she was, it shocked the two boys that she'd suddenly spoke.

"Chris is falling apart", she said. "If we get him at the right moment, we could take him down. I don't know much of anything anymore, but if there's one thing I'm willing to die for, it's getting us the hell out. We'll decide what to do after that".

"He's two heads bigger than all of us though", Preston practically wailed. "I mean, have you guys even seen him in the weight room back at school? He's a fucking animal. There's no way we can take him down!"

"But we _can_ take him down", Roxy said curtly. "He may have the brawn, but there's no way he's going to have the brains to see this coming. And we all have to have faith in this thing if it's going to work. That includes you Preston".

Preston bit his lip but didn't say anything. Hugging his knees, he shuddered and looked away from the other captives and didn't say anything. Having a negative thing to say about almost everything they'd discussed, Zane knew he was only half-heartedly putting up with their plan because it had the chance of saving his own life. _This is your chance though, man. Get everyone the fuck out of here and give Chris his karma. Think about what he did to Rory. You can do this. All of us can do it. Just don't mess anything up again. _

Glancing to the other side of the bog, Zane surveyed their captor. Sitting as a ghostly silhouette in the moonlight, Chris Barrister (Boy #2) methodically polished the sniper rifle over and over again. The fact that he was staring at them was sort of unnerving, but compared to the fact of who the newest hostage in the bog was, the quarterback's stare was lovely to handle. Sitting cross-legged in the dirt beside him, Jude Mercedes (Boy #11) seemed to be staring too. Not to anywhere in particular though. That was something that Zane had noticed about Jude's eyes. Overcast blue headlights that seemed like black holes, it was always impossible to see where they were looking. They always seemed to be observing everything around them, taking in everything like a mental notebook. Although Zane would never admit it, Jude was easily one of the few people in Spanish Rivers High School that frightened him.

Aware of the fact that someone was staring at him, Jude suddenly turned and grinned at him with his perfectly white teeth. Feeling chills go down his spine, Zane shivered and turned away as quickly as he could. Even when he did, he still had the feeling that the boy's eyes were burning right into him.

"_He's nuts",_ he thought._ "there's no way him coming here was an accident. He's here for a reason. He's here to watch this whole thing like a damn show until it gets interesting. Chris only kept him over there with him because he's scared of anyone else turning against him, anyway. Just don't think about it, man"._

Not wanting to think about Jude anymore, Zane forced his mind back to the matter at hand: their escape. Turning back to the others who seemed confused at how he suddenly become so quiet, he couldn't even force himself to smile back at them. Even if he was the one leading it, he was terrified out of his mind.

"We're making a difference here", he found himself announcing. It could have been the annoying habit that he always tended to get melodramatic when it came to things he felt strongly for, but something had to be said. "You might think that we're not going anything here more important than just saving our own asses, but there's more to it than that. The government that put us here keeps control of us by drilling it into our heads that we're too weak to fight back. That's the same thing that Chris has been doing since we got into this fucking bog. He's been keeping us here and waiting for us to die so he doesn't have to do the dirty work himself. This isn't just our way of getting back at over there. It's our own way of showing those fuckers who sent us here that just because they tell us that we're weak, there's no way they're making us think their way".

Shaking his hair out of his eyes, Zane took in a deep breath and held a bloody hand out toward the center of their circle.

"Well, put your hand in when you're ready".

With a weak smile, Roxy reached out and cupped her hand over his. As expected by the others, Preston was more than reluctant to do so. Glancing at them with weary eyes, he finally sighed and put his hand over theirs. Only one remained. Everyone's eyes turned to the linebacker for the Spanish Rivers Sultans who now had only a ghost of a nose on his face. Silent ever since he had arrived at their discussion, he looked up at them with frightened eyes.

"Eddie?" Zane asked. 'Are you in?"

"No", the linebacker said suddenly. "No, Chris is gonna hurt me!"

It came as a surprise to everyone. Shaking his head and making a strange whining sound, the muscular boy scrambled up from the ground and gave one last frantic look at them before running away. Dashing to the other side of the bog, he sat down on a stump jutting out of the ground and rested his face in his hands. It was impossible for them to tell if he was crying or not.

Roxy stared. "Did he change his mind or something?"

"It doesn't matter", Zane sighed. "He'll come when he's ready. When we get out of here, it's going to be together".

Roxy did her best to smile at the boy, but in the back of her mind, she couldn't help but feel like they should have already been digging their graves.

* * *

"They're turning against me, y'know", Chris said as he polished the sniper rifle. "Trying to start some kind of bullshit rebellion. I see them though. They think I don't but I do".

Jude nodded and eyed the boy without much interest. To anyone who knew Chris at school, they would have been overwhelmed with shock at how different he looked now. Handsome, blonde and athletic, he'd walked through the halls with a look of familiarity like he knew exactly where he was going in life. A known ladies man and even more of a known football star; he'd been the self-proclaimed king of the freshman class. In his mind, everyone wanted to be him. In everyone else's mind, it was best not to cross him. The fact that almost all of his brothers had graduated with sports scholarships to various colleges only gave the boy more to brag about, and coupled with the fact that he came from one of the wealthiest families in town, he had it made.

And now in the Battle Royale, Chris Barrister (Boy #2) looked like hell. His shoulder-length blonde hair was runny with dirt and sweat and his eyes seemed aged, almost like he'd seen too much for someone his age. Every so often he would jump at the sound of a cricket chirping, looking in every direction with a frightened look on his face. In almost every sense, he was falling apart.

"I'm sure they don't", Jude said. "You obviously know what you're doing around here".

"Shut up!" Chris snarled. "I told you not to talk! You're damned lucky I'm even letting you live! You know I'm just letting you stay here because I don't want anyone else in that faggots anonymous meeting over there".

Jude glanced over across the bog at the other three captives huddled in a circle in deep discussion. They would be the hardest of the lot to break down, but in due time, they would be falling apart just as much as the rest of them. He couldn't get ahead of himself though. No, right now, he needed to concentrate on his first task.

"I saw your last game down at Ridgedale", Jude said. "You made a good touchdown in the last few minutes".

"We're undefeated", Chris responded. He didn't glance up from polishing the rifle. "Four years. It's going to be five once I win this game and go back to school".

Jude smiled. "You're pretty full of yourself, aren't you?"

"Not really. I just know for a fact that I'm going to win. I mean, sure, I didn't get a great weapon to start out with, but I have this rifle now. After I fuck up everyone in the bog here, I'll move out and dominate the whole island.

"I know you're all an act, Chris", Jude said coldly.

"You know, you're just asking to get your brains blown out, Mercedes. Don't you see that I have a gun?"

"That I do. But I also see a lot of other things about you. Things that you thought no one else would ever find out. Why don't we talk about them?"

The quarterback rolled his eyes. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Well, I already know that you're an active steroids user from your file, so we could start from there".

Chris looked like his blood had ran cold. Glancing around worriedly like taking drugs actually mattered in the game, his eyes narrowed back to Jude. He was still polishing the rifle, but much slower now, almost like he was trying to comfort himself.

"You don't know shit about me!" the boy roared.

"I know much more than you think. From your file, I can gather that you have some problems at home too. Care to talk about that?'

Chris's anger seemed to melt. Biting his lip, he stared into space for a second like he was lost in his thoughts. Then, taking in a deep breath, he turned back to Jude.

"I used to work out at the football field in the morning", he began. "I live near the school so I could always get up early and walk there with my old man. He coaches varsity so he had the keys to the equipment shed. It was the same exercises every single time. He would take out all of these rubber tires and lay them out on the ground. I'd run through them….and run back. Over and over again".

"It must have been hard", Jude commented.

"More than you think. I've ran so many tires. I think I've stepped through fuckers more times than I've actually had my dad hug me. I wouldn't always get through all of them though. After a while, I'd get tired. That was the worst part. If I missed one tire, just one goddamned tire, he would take me aside and put his hand on my shoulder".

Chris's lip was trembling. His repetitive polishing of the sniper rifle had slowed and slowed to the point where he had stopped altogether. Glancing into the hurt and worried eyes, it almost looked to Jude that the boy known to Spanish Rivers High School was dead. Boy #2, an entirely different entity, had been born the moment the game started.

"I have problems with my own father", Jude said quietly. "Did he hit you?"

"No", Chris sighed. "No, he always said he was against hitting kids. He would tell me how I'm never going to amount to anything. He would say that I'll spend the rest of my life working in a cubicle instead of playing football in the big leagues with the real patriots. He'd say that sports are the only thing I can do right, and if I fuck that up, he's not going to help me out if I mess up my own life too. And then he would lean in really close and he'd say…he'd say that I'm never going to amount to anything. I won't ever be a winner".

Chris glanced down at his muscular arms with weary eyes. Jude had never noticed before, but there seemed to be a strange deformity to them near his shoulders.

"Steroids aren't fun, Jude", the boy said softly. "Especially when you start taking them when you're only a fucking freshman. You keep thinking that they'll turn you into a winner, but in the end, all they do is shrink your balls and make you feel even worse. I hate my dad. I hate football. And I hate the fucking Spanish Rivers Sultans".

"But you're at the top of the state", Jude said. "you've had that winning streak for four years now, haven't you?"

"I don't give a shit about our winning streak!' Chris howled. He was at the verge of tears now. "I don't want to play football anymore! I'm so tired of all of this! Whenever I walk out anywhere, I feel like I have to win! After awhile, everything just turns into a big competition!

"Life is a competition though", Jude cut in. "you can't forget that".

The quarterback looked confused. "What do you mean?'

"Chris, this is the time where the real American patriots are made. Think about everything your dad ever told you about winning. What do the weak contribute to society? Nothing. While you're out stepping through tires and working your ass off, they're just sitting there and getting everything handed to them. It's all like you said. A gene pool. And the Battle Royale is your opportunity to finally clean it out for good".

"But I'm tired of fighting", Chris said. "Sometimes I just want to die out here…"

"Don't talk like that. Imagine what your dad is thinking at home. Imagine what all of your brothers are thinking. They're all tuning in and watching you. You're the star now. They're all watching you, waiting for the chance to see you fuck up. This is the one opportunity you're going to have to prove all of them wrong, Chris. You're a winner. Think about how hard they must have cheered for your when you killed Rory".

"My dad watches the program every year with his sports buddies from the bar uptown", Chris remembered suddenly. "They all come down to my house and have a marathon for the whole three days".

"And they're all cheering for you", Jude said with a grin. "This is your chance to prove to your father that the weak have no purpose. Show him that you're the king. Blow everyone all over this island to bits and make all of your old man's philosophies come true. Clean out the gene pool".

There was an eerie silence when Jude finished. After appearing in deep thought for a moment, Chris only responded with a nod. Looking away again, he then sighed and checked the ammunition for his rifle. Jude hadn't put much effort into destroying his mind. Falling apart even before his arrival into the bog, Chris's mind had been very simple to shatter and leave him only with the tunnel-vision of winning.

Turning away from his newest victim, Jude peered out into the foliage beside the bog. The boy with the Glock 17 in his hands was still crouched in the bushes. The boy's mouth kept opening over and over again, but for some reason, no sounds were coming out.

"Thank you very much", Jude said quietly.

Darren didn't say anything. Not having any time for him, Jude looked away prided himself at letting the first cog in the group's demise fall into play. By saying virtually nothing at all, he'd sculpted the boy's mind like clay. He couldn't gloat for long though. After all, there was still the second cog. He turned his attention to the boy sitting on the stump.

* * *

The life of Eddie Dunnerman (Boy #4) had become a living hell. With his face a mess of coagulated blood and loose skin from his broken nose, he'd tried to convince himself that he'd survive. Becoming some kind of medical miracle, he would make it through the night despite the massive blood loss. Maybe he would gain the courage to simply walk over to Chris and bash his head in too. In fact, he'd even snuck a syringe from Chris's assigned first-aid kit, planning to stab him when he got the chance.

Admittedly though, like most things in Eddie's life, it was all just wishful thinking. _You know you're going to die, man. You know we're all going to die. Why can't you just grow the balls to walk over there and beat the living shit out of him?_

Hugging himself as he sat on one of the stumps jutting out of the bog, Eddie looked over at Chris. Things were different outside the battlefield. In fact, back at their high school, the frightened-looking boy polishing the sniper rifle had been his role model. Charismatic and able to walk through the halls like he owned the place, he was everything Eddie was not. Although he had always tried to be happy with whom he was he had always felt a sense of dissatisfaction at all of his flaws.

Eddie wasn't smart. In fact, the reason he hadn't been labeled mentally challenged was because his stubborn mother had never taken him to be checked out. She'd just kept telling him that while everyone else took things fast, Eddie took things slow. Slow and steady wins the race. That was what she'd always said. That wasn't his only flaw either. Along with being dumb, he was ugly. Pimply with an overbite and a poor attempt at cultivating early facial hair, he'd earned most of his dates from girls who were only using him to get noticed by Chris.

But he wasn't being taken advantage of. There was no way. Chris had always said that he had his back. In fact, in the many fights he'd gotten into at school for his brawn speaking instead of his brain, the quarterback had said that he wouldn't let anything bad happen. While everyone else viewed him as a mindless lackey, Eddie saw it simply as someone being nice to him.

So now, after going to hell and back and realizing what Chris's true intentions were, why couldn't he kill him?

Lost in his own thoughts, Eddie almost jumped out of his skin when he realized that someone had sat down beside him. Glancing up, he saw the observant face of Jude Mercedes (Boy #11) staring at him.

"How goes it, Dunnerman?"

"Bad", the boy said with a sniffle."I keep feeling like there's something crawling up my nose".

"You probably have an infection", Jude responded. "I don't think it'll be life-threatening anytime soon though. Chris is probably just trying to scare you. If it goes untreated, I would give you about a week".

"Are you sure?"

"My dad's a psychologist", Jude replied. "not a doctor. But I'm just trying to cheer you up a little. You look a bit down. What's wrong?"

Eddie glared. "What the hell do you think is wrong? I've been put in a fucking game where I've broken my nose, been left to die, learned that the one person I thought was my friend could give less of a shit about me, and you still have the nerve to ask what's wrong?"

"As the matter of fact I do", Jude said. "I just want to talk to you".

"About what?"

"Anything you want. You talk to me, I'll talk to you. We'll learn about eachother. How about we start with the subject that I think everyone in this bog wants to know?"

Eddie didn't seem to understand. "What do you mean?"

"I mean what's obviously been plaguing you for almost your entire life. Why do you listen to Chris even if you know he could care less about anyone but himself?'

Shivering in the night, the boy looked down at the swampy, wet ground. No longer rocking back and forth, he looked at Jude with nervous eyes, almost like he was frightened of somebody listening in on them.

"I was always second", Eddie began with a sigh. "Not in school though. I was always last in that. I always came in second in the one thing I cared about: sports. No matter how hard I pushed myself in track, I just couldn't cross the finish line before the guy in the next lane broke through the ribbon. No matter how hard I pushed myself in football, I couldn't run fast enough to score the touchdown when the whole team was counting on me. I just kept asking myself why I wasn't winning. But do you know who could do all of that though? Do you know who could do every single one of those damned things and more?"

Jude smirked. "Who?"

"Who the hell do you think? Chris. He was always first in every sport we tried out for together. Just when I thought I was about to win, he beat me. I lived life as his fucking shadow just because he needed to make him look impressive. That wasn't the worst part though. The worst part was when I went to sleep at night, I realized that I didn't want to be Eddie Dunnerman anymore. I wanted to be Chris Barrister".

"Chris has his own share of problems", Jude said. "You definitely don't want to be him".

"But I do!" Eddie cried. "I want his life! I followed him everywhere, and he was so nice to me the whole time! I mean, I thought we were friends! He always said I was his friend! I had a purpose until this damn game started".

Eddie was sobbing now. Tears were dripping down his ruined face and mixing with the blood like runny paint. Glancing around quickly, Jude made sure nobody was watching. Chris was still sitting at the far end of the bog and polishing the sniper rifle, glancing at the captives of every few seconds. Zane, Roxy, and Preston were still in deep conversation, planning whatever they were planning. _Good. It's all coming together. Everything's on the peak. It'll all come crashing down._

"Eddie", Jude said. "it doesn't matter if you're second or first on the island. What matters is the will you have to survive. Would you die sniffling in your own blood or would you go down fighting?"

"I'd…I'd go down fighting…"

"Exactly. You definitely have the will for that matter. So why don't I make a deal with you? We'll form an alliance. You and me will slaughter everyone in the bog. I'll turn them against each other and all you have to do is the dirty work. Bash their heads in and watch them squirm. After that, we'll leave and take the island by storm. By tomorrow, every sector in this game will be soaked with blood".

"What happens after that?" Eddie asked softly. "What happens when it's just you and me left?"

"We'll brawl. And then you'll have the final chance to prove that you're not second. Kill me and you'll be first". The boy leaned in closer. "You'll be the winner for once".

That seemed to be the trigger word in Eddie's head. Wiping away his tears, the boy sniffled, nodded, but didn't respond. If anything, Jude was satisfied. The deal had been struck. Instead of being a shadow, Eddie was faced with the possibility of taking the league in life. Everything was pleasant now.

"I don't want to die", Eddie whined suddenly. "I don't want to get hurt no more".

"Then don't", Jude said simply. "When the time comes, just run for it"

And with those simple words, Jude stood up and walked away, leaving the boy with a very different outlook on the program.

* * *

At 12:45 AM, every intercom wired all over the island crackled on with a metallic hiss.

"Good evening everyone! Coming live from the school, it's Reynold Burke with the midnight report! I'd like to be the first and probably last to congratulate you on surviving for the second day. Twenty-nine of you left right? God. I'm feeling that sleep deprivation too, boys and girls. Fuckers won't even let me take a nap for a second. Then again, none of these assholes are entitled to give a shit about a program instructor anyway. All they care about are their money, their announcements and their damn ratings. Well, considering how I haven't passed out yet, I guess it's time to say who died in the last six hours.

There was the sound of typing in a computer terminal followed by swearing under the man's breathe. He groaned loudly.

"You're all pitiful", he continued. "Simply pitiful. _One death_? I mean, in an age of school shootings where you practically have the same risk of dying at school as test pilots, you still have the nerve to only rack up one death? What the hell is the matter with you guys? Start piling up some bodies or we're blowing your heads off! Anyway, our lone fallen warrior was Rory North, Boy #13. You guys make think that you're making some kind of point to yourselves by dying, but in the end, the only thing you're leaving behind in the world is a corpse. Now, the Danger Zones. At 1:45 we have J6, that's J6 at 1:45. At 2:33 we have H10, followed by G9 at 4:15 and A2 at 5:43. And on the subject of your awful body count, I think we'll make a new rule this time around. Get at least three bodies or we blow all of your collars and end the game. It's that simple. I hope you've learned your lesson from the last six hours and start behaving like real American patriots".

The sound of clicking in a computer terminal started again. Anyone listening closely could hear other soldiers in the school walking around, shouting out orders.

"Oh, and on a final note, please ignore the ship patrolling the side of the island. The bidders might yell out anything they want, but don't let it get to you. Every single one of you has a shot to win. That'll be all. Burke out".

* * *

Preston Tracy (Boy #18) normally wasn't a very fun person to be around. Gaining the reputation in school of being socially awkward as well as a scaredy cat, he'd spent most of his high school career either being pushed around in his mascot costume or trapped in lockers. It wasn't that he didn't try to fit in. Most of the time, he was just too afraid of being let down to attempt anything close to an actual friendship.

"_That back fired on you though",_ the boy thought. _"What allies do you have out here now? Who's going to catch you when you fall?"_

That was another problem. Never having much of a high opinion of himself, he relied on other people to the point where he never made a single decision for anything. He pictured himself like a marionette on strings, used every step of the way by the puppeteer. In this case, the puppeteer was Boy #2….

It was so clear to him that Chris needed to be killed. Not only was he a tyrant on the island but in school as well. Always seeing him as a confident and fearless leader, he'd actually tried out for the mascot position in hope to get closer to the quarterback. After all, he was easily one of the most popular kids in school. If he invited him into his social circle, a whole new world would open up to him. Instead of walking through the hallways alone, he would be surrounded by a crowd of friends. He'd have someone to talk to in class. He'd be invited to parties. It would be perfection.

Instead, he got quite the opposite reaction.

From flushing his head in the toilet and duct taping him to the flagpole in his mascot costume, his life became a living hell. He'd gone from unnoticed to hated school wide just because Chris said so. When he passed the quarterback in the hall, the times when he luckily didn't notice him, Preston had always felt impulses. Violent impulses.

But he couldn't hurt him. Preston was a pacifist. Along with that, he was a coward. Murdering Chris was completely out of the question. In fear of getting hurt, he just tended to go with the flow and take the abuse. But in the back of his mind, there was always that growing feeling. The feeling of rage…_killhimkillhimkillhim…_

"It's time", Zane said suddenly. "Everyone ready?"

Preston's thoughts were ended when the idea of their escape blasted him back to reality. Taking in a deep breath, he glanced up at Zane. Scraggly-looking with stringy, brown hair tucked under a skater beanie, the boy wasn't someone that he would normally put faith into. In fact, he would have been the very last person. He was a wannabe revolutionary whose plans probably sounded better in his head than they did to everyone else.

"I'm ready", Roxy said.

"Yeah", Preston said. He felt like he didn't have a choice. "Yeah, I'm ready too".

Feeling butterflies in his stomach, he glanced over at Rory's corpse. Gnats and bog insects were buzzing around his water-logged skull, twittering around the blood and brains. That was going to be all of them. All of them were going to become bug food. _God, this is such a stupid idea. What are you still doing here, man?_

"Do you think they were serious about that announcement?" Roxy asked. "About blowing everyone's collar if we don't start killing eachother soon?"

"I think it's against the rules for them to end the game just because no one's killing anyone", Zane replied. "They're probably just trying to scare everyone into starting a massacre".

"The game's been slowing down though", Roxy said. "Do you think that means anything? I mean, maybe we can go for the rest of the game without anyone dying".

"There's always one left in the end", Zane said grimly. "My entire family watches the program every year on TV. My dad always tries to get me to watch it too. If I ever say anything bad about it, he just calls me unpatriotic and walks away shaking his head. He thinks I'm a lost cause because I don't want to watch everyone's head being blown off".

"So somebody always wins?" Roxy asked.

"Either that or the only person left just dies in the hospital when the game is over. Anyway, it doesn't matter. We can't be thinking about that right now. Everyone's clear on the plan, right?"

"Actually", a smooth voice said from behind them. "I'm a little confused".

Standing above them all was none other than Jude Mercedes (Boy #11). Having apparently joined in on their circle when no one was paying attention, the idea of how long he could have been eavesdropping was unnerving. Glancing down at them with his dead-looking eyes, he was almost like an animated corpse.

"There seems to be a lot of discussion going on over here", Jude said. "I sense some sort of rebellion going on, am I right?" He glanced down at the ground and wrinkled his nose. "Of course, it looks like some were too late to join in".

They followed his gaze to Rory's remains on the ground. The bog was eating away at his flesh, churning his face into the dirt like runny mud. There seemed to be some sort of fungus growing underneath his eye.

Zane sighed. "Look, no offense, but we really have enough people here. You're free to escape just as much as the rest of us, but it would be good for everyone if you just didn't join in on-

"You don't have the pretend to not think I'm some kind of freak", Jude cut in. "Everyone thinks I'm a freak, you know. They look at me and whisper to each other even though I'm right in front of them. Sometimes I try to figure out what they're saying, but then I decide it really doesn't matter". He paused. "I don't want to join in on whatever you're doing here, by the way".

"Then why are you here?" Zane asked.

"Well, that's really not your concern, is it? After all, Zane, I find it strange that you're leading another revolution of yours. I seem to recall something happening this summer from your file. You aren't a very good leader, are you?"

Zane glared. "You don't know anything about me".

"Maybe I don't", Jude said placidly. "Just like I don't know that Roxy's cousin died in one of these very games. Or that diabetes runs in Preston's family and he was lucky enough not to inherit it. Anyway, I don't think any of that matters much".

Acting like he'd been invited, the boy sat down in the mud with them. The most troubling thing about the boy was how unfazed he seemed to be to the killing game. While almost all of them were covered in wounds and at the verge of falling apart, Jude's only physical casualties seemed to be the fact that he was caked from head to toe in grime and that his eyes looked wilder than ever.

"I've been talking with Chris", Jude said quietly. "He's a mess. If you guys get him at the right moment, you can definitely take him down. I don't think you're doing much by fighting him in the first place though. You're not proving anything. After all, there's the nature philosophy".

"What's the nature philosophy?" Roxy asked.

Jude smiled widely. "It's something I've established on my own time. It's my belief that everything on this island isn't worth it in the long run. You see, people are cogs. They get up in the morning to go to work for no reason other than that it's their role in society to be a part of the bigger machine. Think about how all of those people getting up in the morning can just be replaced by clones of themselves. Think about how everyone on this island can be replaced. We're all just numbers, anyway. Just pawns on a chess board to move around. People are expendable by nature. In the long run, nobody's really worth it".

"You're fucking nuts", Zane said. "How can you actually think like that?"

"I don't know", Jude said simply. "I'm just different. I don't think I belong with the rest of you. I always feel out of place. Isn't that right Preston?"

Preston, who always looked edgy, now looked like he was at the verge of a heart attack. Just the idea of Jude speaking directly to him seemed to terrify him. Cowering in fear, he did a very poor job of making eye contact with the boy.

Jude shrugged. "I guess you're not much for conversation. I see you in school, you know. You always walk down the hallway looking at the ground. You don't have much of a high opinion of yourself, do you?"

"Leave him alone", Roxy hissed. "You're being an asshole".

"I'm being honest. You're the mascot. I see you get in that fat king costume at the games and jump around. And then, right after that, I see Chris and the others beat the shit out of you behind the bleachers. You never fight back, though. Why is that?"

"I'm scared", Preston said softly. "I…I just want to fit in".

"Exactly", Jude continued. "You thought that trying to get close to the football team would open up your little social circle. Didn't exactly work out, did it? Fitting in isn't all it's cracked up to be. I know that for a fact. After all, look at yourself now. You're in a Battle Royale. Who cares if you're invited to parties or if you're a damn quarterback for your football team. This is a game to spill blood. It's not a game where being popular matters anymore".

"But what do you want me to do?" Preston asked. He was so frightened that his voice had started cracking. "What the hell do you want?"

"What do you think? This is your time to deprive the Spanish Rivers Sultans of the best player in town. Slaughter him. Think about all of the times he pushed you around for no reason other than that he felt like it. You have a lot of rage, Preston. You've just been too scared to ever use it. Grind Chris's head into the ground. Dance in his blo-

"Just shut up!" Zane cried. "You're putting words into his head!"

"Like you don't?" Jude sneered.

But it didn't matter what words Preston was swallowing anymore. At the moment Jude finished speaking, there seemed to be a change triggered in the mascot. His face light up in realization, suddenly understanding the flaws in his life. Through the horrors of what Jude had said, it looked like he now had quite another agenda other than escaping. He was thirsty for revenge. In the back of his mind, the boy now had the growing desire to become a killing machine.

Zane, apparently noticing the abrupt change in the mascot, decided it was best to start in on the plan before things got any worse. Taking in a deep breath and trying as hard as he could to forget everything Jude said, he faced the others. It was time.

"Does everyone know what to do?" he asked.

"I have the first move", Preston said quietly. His voice was still shrill.

Crawling over to Zane and the duct tape cocoon around him that was soaked in mud, he carefully began to peel off the tape. Doing it hesitantly and trying to keep the breach hidden, he worked his way through the bindings. Folding the severed tape over on the boy's back and wrapping it around again, he gave the illusion that the boy was still being held down by the gray cocoon while he was really free as a bird.

"Nice job", Zane said when he finished. "Roxy?"

"I'm ready", she said quickly. "Give it to me".

With his newly freed right hand, Zane scurried his hand through the damp quagmire of the bog until he felt something cold and metal. Quickly checking the Beretta 21A Bobcat pistol to see if it was loaded, he tried his best to shake off some of the bog water that appeared to be clogged in it. Sliding it over to the muskeg tree, he watched carefully as Roxy struggled to get her fingers on it. After some effort, the girl that was still tied to the tree managed to grab the weapon and tuck it into her jeans.

"_Time to play dead, girl_", she thought. _"Better pray to God this works"._

Laying back and sucking in all of her breathe, the star actress of the Spanish Rivers High School drama club lay back against the tree with her hands sprawled out in the mud. It was going to be the best performance she'd ever given. To passerby who didn't know any better, she might as well have been a corpse if it wasn't for her collar flashing a red light to correspond with her heart beat. There was an easy solution to that. The knot Eddie had tied her to the tree with his jersey was tight, but it wasn't that tight. She managed to roll over enough against the tree to hide her collar from view.

Everything was in place. All they needed now was the boy that imprisoned them.

* * *

Chris Barrister (Boy #2) had fallen asleep for roughly three minutes before he kicked himself back awake. Slumped over with the sniper rifle nudging against his chin, dark dreams had ping-ponged back and forth in the athlete's head. _Running down the football field feeling his father's cold eyes bearing down at him from the bleachers. Warm-ups in the morning as he ran through tires over and over again._ It was a living hell. A living hell that he'd unfortunately endured for his entire life. He wanted so badly for it to end, and sadly, he knew it was only wishful thinking. Winning had been his path in life, and ironically, he knew it was turning out to be the path that would be leading him to his death.

"_You fell asleep_", the boy's father yelled at him in his mind. _"How can you have fallen asleep? Do you even want to get that fucking scholarship? They don't just hand scholarships out to scrawny little pussy boys who fall asleep on the job. If they did the weak would be running everywhere"._

His thoughts were ended when a sharp voice screamed his name through the bog.

"CHRIS!"

For a bizarre second, Chris had the hysterical urge to answer, "yes daddy?" Then his consciousness returned and he realized that the voice belonged to Zane. Ignoring the throbbing headache in his head and too dazed to think of a proper insult to throw back at the boy, he found himself rising to his feet. _I'm not even a real person anymore. I'm just a soldier marching out of the battlefield._

Stumbling over with the sniper rifle in his hands heavier than he remembered it, he marched over to the clearing of sunken-in trees at the far end of the bog. Seeing only shadowy outlines of the prisoners gathered around the tree in the moonlight, the first thing he noticed was the girl laying face-down in her dirt. Eddie had evidently been too much of a dumbshit to tie his jersey around the tree right. The girl was lying in the mud with the baggy shirt only tied loosely around her and the tree.

"_Fucker can't even tie a knot right",_ Chris thought. _"She could have gotten out if she pulled hard enough. Got to remember to beat the shit out of him. Got to remember to get em' all good. Got to do it for my old man. But that girl. The way she's sitting there. Is she-_

"She didn't make it", Zane Barrens (Boy #1) said quietly. He was coated in the duct tape they'd wrapped around him and lying at Chris's feet. If he looked closer he would have noticed how oddly positioned the tape was, almost like it was just layered on top of it, but he was too dazed to care much about anything.

Chris blinked. "What?"

"She didn't make it", Zane said again. "We checked her pulse awhile ago and we didn't get anything. She's dead".

"I think she had a heart condition", Zane said sadly. "Kept mumbling about having to take her pills or something. She wasn't making any sense. Plus she's been running around in the cold all day before she showed up here. We tried keeping her alive for as long as we could, but nothing really worked".

Chris eyed the girl curiously. As far as he could tell, she looked pretty dead. Slumped against the ground with the football jersey clinging around her, she didn't appear to be breathing at all. _Lungs probably weren't strong enough to get over some cold. Got the chills. Stupid bitch._

But there was the growing dreadful feeling that there was something very wrong. Things just didn't seem to fit together right. As Chris stared at the dead body, the sound of Eddie jogging toward them made him grit his teeth. Apparently drawn by the sudden commotion, he stared in horror at the girl's corpse on the ground.

His eyes widened. "Is she…"

"Bitch ain't dead", Chris growled. "and I can prove it".

"What the hell are you talking about?" Zane said. "She's fucking dead. There's nothing to prove".

"You guys are just trying to screw around with me", Chris snarled. "I've seen you talking for hours, you know. Jude and I have both been watching you. You all had your heads together like you were planning something"

"You've left us all out in the cold to die", Zane said with a glare. "Sorry if we're talking about how the hell we're going to keep ourselves alive".

Tightening his grip on the sniper rifle and wanting to ram it into the revolutionary's face, he looked cautiously at the girl. Her skin was pale, but then again, it had always been. She'd always reminded Chris of a plant that hadn't gotten enough sunlight. Kneeling over toward her, he raised his eyebrow as he gave her a good shake on the shoulder. Aside from her head rolling over to the side, nothing happened. Leaning in even closer, he realized that he couldn't even feel her breathe.

"Her collar", Eddie said suddenly.

Chris didn't look away from the girl. "What?"

"Her collar. Check her collar. Remember what they said about the heart beat thing?"

Never much for remembering much other than one-night stands and stories behind athletic trophies in his room, he had to think hard to remember that Burke had mentioned the collars beeping red light to correspond with their heartbeat. Glancing up at Roxy's neck, he realized that the angle she was facing in the mud made it impossible for him to see her collar.

"I'll tell you fuckers if she's dead or not", Chris said sharply.

Reaching forward, the quarterback grabbed Roxy firmly and held her up to see her neck….

When the captives of the bog had planned their escape, they'd counted on many things. Revolution had been high on the list, but in the back of all of their minds, they had expected surprises. None of them had openly said this in fear of crushing the hope of the others, but there'd been that constant reminder that anything could go wrong. It wasn't that they hadn't planned hard enough, but it was just the fact that they'd overlooked several things. They'd planned that Roxy would be able to hold her breathe and play dead. They planned that Zane would be able to persuade Chris into checking her collar.

What they didn't plan on was the high water levels of the bog seeping into the pistol and rendering its ammunition completely useless….

The moment Chris leaned out toward her collar, Roxy sprung to life and whipped out the Bobcat pistol. Pointing it at the quarterback's chest, she clicked the trigger and felt her eyes widen in horror when it produced absolutely nothing but clogged water and dirt.

"Well, well, well".

Chris grinned malevolently. His fingers drummed on the carbines of the sniper rifle. For a tense moment in the bog, there was complete silence. Everybody was caught between horror and anticipation on what would come next. Something was going to happen. Somebody was going to do something. The question was who.

Odds didn't expect Eddie Dunnerman (Boy #2).

Rushing forward, the boy ran forward with the syringe he'd taken from the first-aid kit and stabbed Chris in the back.

It had begun.

* * *

**No Students Eliminated**

* * *

**29 Students Remaining**


	27. Day 2: Hour 25: 29 Students Remaining

Birds flew from the island's high trees at the sound of Chris's scream. Everyone in the bog watched in horrified silence as the boy clawed at his back, desperately trying to rip out the needle. Finally, with a bloody hiss that hurt all of their ears, he grabbed it and jerked the syringe free. A light mist of blood sprayed out like a whale's porthole.

Ignoring the fact that he had become a hunchback and he could feel blood curdling within his back, Chris found himself not caring about his own welfare. No, if there was one thing he'd learned, it was that punishment came first. The blood could spill out until the end of time, but if the ones who drew the blood weren't accounted for, nothing was worth it. If there was one thing the coach had taught him, it was to not like the weak walk over him. And, just to add to the embarrassment, he'd just completely fallen into allurement and let them stab him in the back. There needed to be a punishment. Not just for his actions, but for everyone in the fucking bog's.

He looked warily at all of the weak around him. Roxy looked absolutely hysterical, trying desperately to force her way out of Eddie's jersey that was wrapped around her. Preston was standing as a bystander as usual, but there seemed to be something different about his eyes. Eddie, the one who had just betrayed him after all they'd talked about, stood there looking like he'd just proved something.

"_They all deserve it",_ Chris thought madly. _"They're all against me. I'll get them though, Dad. I'll get them all good. Then I'll get off this fucking island. go home, and we'll train and train and make up for all of the lost time. And then I'll be ready for the game this weekend. Doesn't that sound nice, coach?"_

_But who should go first?_ Jude didn't deserve punishment whatsoever. All in all, he'd opened his eyes to what was really going on. He felt a burning hatred for Eddie (and a burning pain in his back to go with it) but he knew the boy didn't learn from discipline whatsoever. Roxy had tried to shoot him in the gut, but for some reason, he felt even more anger at himself for being so stupid. Preston was just a coward in general who almost wasn't worth it.

_But Zane…._

Spinning around, he saw the school thug on the ground peeling himself out of the duct tape as quickly as he could, swearing at the top of his lungs. His plan had obviously gone wrong. That was enough reassurance for the quarterback. He'd started a rebellion against him, challenging the very structure of the gene pool. He was weak, but for some reason Chris never understood, he'd challenged a winner. He'd given everyone false hope that had just erupted. He'd been the key trigger in starting the uprising. If there was one person to blame, it was him.

"I'M GOING TO FUCKING KILL YOU!" Chris roared.

If the star player of the Spanish Rivers Sultans hadn't wrapped his fingers around his throat and pulled him off the ground, Zane probably would have screamed.

* * *

_It's falling apart. It's all falling apart._

Roxy Patterson (Girl #12) watched the whole scene in unforeseen horror. It was too much to take in. She watched as Chris's muscular arms raised Zane into the air by his throat, sucking what looked like the very life out of him. His arms fell limply to his side as the oxygen slowly stopped flowing, making horrible wrenching sounds as Chris shook him violently.

"_It doesn't make any sense",_ she thought. _"everything that could have gone wrong went wrong. And now we're stuck killing eachother because of it"._

She tried to force her way off the tree, but it was still proving to be arduous. Flimsy-looking or not, the jersey's knot seemed to be tied in a strange way that just wouldn't break. Helplessly, she watched as Chris's fingers shook under the pressure of pressing into Zane's throat. The boy's face was growing as white as an onion. Fingering with the knot's tight loop, she slipped her finger under it in a sharp hook. This only seemed to tighten it even more. Frustrated, she pulled hard on one of the jersey's threads, and to her surprise, she managed to untangle one of her hands. _That's the way to do it girl. You're almost there._

Struggling to force her way out of the jersey, Roxy suddenly became aware that there was a large shadow towering over her. When she looked up, she was met with the face of Eddie Dunnerman (Boy #4). With his shirt ripped off him, his entire body looked soaked in a lather of sweat. With the moon eclipsed around him, it was impossible to see his expression.

Despite the situation, Roxy found herself forming a smile. "Eddie, you changed your mind!"

The boy didn't respond. With a determined look on his face, he grabbed her arm and nearly pulled it out of its socket. The jersey ripped in a second as the girl was torn from the tree and flung into the air by her arm. Holding her up and shaking her like a rag doll, Eddie spun her around senselessly before pinning her down hard onto the earth.

* * *

Zane could hardly breathe. Gagging as the quarterback pushed his thumbs harder and harder into his throat, his vision grew hazy. Chris's face was a blur weaving in and out of its outline as he glared at him. His fingers pressed harder in, giving Zane the awful feeling that he was rising up through the clouds.

_It wasn't supposed to be like this._

Through the pain, that was all he could think. Everything was supposed to come together for an ordered escape. There weren't supposed to be any casualties among them. In fact, he'd promised there weren't going to be any casualties but Chris. But once again, things had turned on him at the last minute. And people are going to die. _People are going to fucking die now all because of me._

His vision grew even blurrier as Chris continued to choke him to death. Feeling something pop in his neck, he tried to move his arm, but for some reason, it now felt like a ten-ton weight. In the corner of his eye, he felt even worse at the sight of Roxy being beaten to a bloody pulp by Eddie. Jude was nowhere to be seen, and for some odd reason, it was good that way. He knew he should have felt furious with the boy, but the most he could feel with him was mild dissatisfaction. After all, the light-headedness from the lack of oxygen made everything look pleasant.

But they'd been so close. They had escape at their fingertips, and right when they were one step away, they had it pulled away before their very eyes. It always happened. Glancing around as he felt his lungs gasping for air, he didn't just see the bog. The revolutionary saw the society that they lived in now. A world where a close-knit group of people could be torn apart with the press of a button, just because the government felt like it. _That was what got him really thinking…._

"_There's no way you're taking me down, asshole_", he thought. _"Not now. Not after all of this"._

Reaching out his weak, heavy hands, Zane dug his nails hard into Chris's belly. He gave a squealing nose, almost like a pig, as a response but barely loosened his grip on his throat. Pressing in his nails even harder, feeling his entire arm shaking from all of the force he was putting into it, he finally felt like he was cutting through skin. Blood dripped down his shaking fingers as the quarterback howled out in agony.

"IT HURTS!" Chris screamed. "STOP IT YOU MOTHERFUCKER, IT HURTS!"

He dropped the boy to the ground immeadidly and clutched his stomach in pain. Taking in a deep breath of oxygen the moment he was free, Zane knew that he couldn't risk missing his chance. Trying to kick off the feeling of lightheadedness, he forced himself up from the ground and punched Chris in the jaw. It was a weak punch, especially with his vision still hazy from almost being choked, but it was enough to send Chris stumbling backwards…

And barely miss getting shot in the head.

The bullet whizzed through the air past Chris's head and landed somewhere in the forest. Spinning around, Zane's jaw dropped at one of the last people he had ever expected to see hold a gun. Preston Tracy (Boy #18) stood several feet away, a look of plain fury on his face and the sniper rifle cradled in his skinny arms. The boy's entire body was shaking; it almost looked like the force of the rifle going off had knocked the wind out of him.

"He's mine", Preston said shortly. He still had that deranged look in his eyes. "Go help Roxy".

"But Pre-

"Just go man. I'm killing this bastard."

Zane looked hopelessly at Preston. The boy that was regularly shoved into lockers and whipped by wet towels in gym class seemed like a distant memory. Holding the sniper rifle and looking like he was ready to tear the entire world apart with his enraged face, the boy was hard for Zane to look at. What had been created from him was exactly what Jude wanted.

"You don't have to do this", he said. "I know you want him dead, but you're just killing yourself like this".

"Then in that case", Preston said softly. "I'm killing myself".

Without warning, Preston rushed forward and jabbed the rifle like a javelin hard into Chris's wounded back. Screaming so loud that it felt like trees would fall down, Chris turned around to face the mascot. Glaring down at him, the quarterback cracked his knuckles.

"JUST GO!" Preston howled. "I CAN DO THIS!"

Craning his neck to see Roxy's head being beaten into the ground, Zane knew there wasn't much more time to talk. Forcing himself to nod at the mascot, he took off in the opposite direction.

* * *

The screams within the bog were music to his ears. Standing at the edge of the small knoll that sloped into the bog, Jude Mercedes (Boy #11) looked at all of the broken people. It was definitely his greatest work yet. Never before had he torn apart what had started out as a structured group of people. Some of them had been particularly hard to crack, but the others had been simple. Jude liked the harder ones more. A challenge was always fun.

He watched as Preston and Chris wrestled in the mud. Pinning himself onto the boy's chest and somehow ignoring the fact that his face was still being pummeled in, Preston glanced around for the nearest bludgeon he could use. He found a solution quickly. Burying Chris's head into the dirt as he boy screamed like a lion, the mascot wrapped his free hand out around a metal box that was submerged in the mire: Chris's issued first-aid kit. Picking up the boy's head, he began to beat it over and over again into the box. Blood splattered like rose petals into the air. Not letting it get to him though, Chris easily shook himself from the weak boy's grip. Pressing a powerful hand around his head, he flipped him over in the dirt and began to do the same to him.

"_It's beautiful",_ Jude thought. _"It's absolutely beautiful"._

He couldn't stay. He wanted to watch the conclusion of the massacre, but unfortunately, but he just couldn't. If he stayed any longer, he would put himself at the risk of getting hurt. If everything kept falling into place, almost all of them would be dead. They would all tear each other apart in a matter of minutes.

_People are expendable by nature…_

Keeping the thought in his head, Jude ran off into the woods satisfied. His father would be proud.

* * *

_Thud._

The actress was slammed into the wet ground again by the powerful pair of arms. Weighing a little over a hundred pounds, Roxy found herself shocked that he was even able to lift her. But he was. Spending more time on brawn than brains, Eddie had always been frightening to watch in the school fitness room at the bench press. Those arms that had been cultivated to perfection were now slamming her into a bloody pulp.

She hit the ground again and felt colors scatter and dance in front of her eyes. Her head throbbed as she was lifted into the air again, the bright moonlight burning her eyes, before she was brought down hard into the earth again. For a second she thought it was raining, but after a moment of horrified realization, she saw that it was blood. Her own blood that was being speckled into the air like paint on a canvas.

"I'M GONNA BE FIRST!" Eddie kept screaming. "I'M SORRY! I'M GONNA BE FIRST!"

Coming up into the air again, she tried to swing a punch at him but missed completely. Part of it was because of how disoriented she was, but the real reason what that she knew she was defeated. Usually one of the first to give in when a revolution came, she was used to simply doing what she was told. She gave in to the government when they came to censor their plays in the drama club. She gave in to the Battle Royale by running through the game's morning paranoid of forming allies. She gave in to everything. It wasn't that she wasn't aware of it, but it just wasn't something she couldn't change.

And now she was going to end up giving in to Eddie Dunnerman (Boy #4).

"Eddie…", she wheezed. "Stop it...please…"

Instead of even contemplating letting her go, he screamed like he was in pain and started digging his nails into her arm. He shook her back and forth, letting even more blood spill out. Feeling like a human fire hydrant, the girl screeched and desperately tried to claw her hands into the ground. _The blood's going to my head._ _God, I can't even see straight anymore._

"I'M GONNA BE FIRST!" Eddie said again. "I'M GONNA BE FIRST!"

Something silver went spinning through the air like a boomerang. When it finally reached Eddie's throat with the sound of a water balloon popping, Roxy realized what it was. A pistol. Not just any pistol, but the water-logged one that had indirectly started the entire massacre. Eddie gurgled and spit out blood, instantly dropping her onto the ground. She hit her head pretty hard on the ground, but that was the least of her worries. She felt the world righten itself as she was flipped back to earth.

Zane Barrens (Boy #1) was standing a few feet away with a look of defiance. Scurrying up from the ground, she quickly put two and two together and realized that he'd thrown the pistol to buy her time.

"I'm going to kill you…", Eddie still croaked. He was holding his throat and advancing toward her in a shambling walk. "_Fucking kill you_…"

Roxy saw her chance. She felt sick, but if she didn't get him when he was down, he would just come back and attack her again. Gritting her teeth, she swung out her leg into a high kick and nailed Eddie in the side of the face. Blood and teeth spit out of his already ruined mouth, speckling his face like cake batter. For a second it looked like the boy was going to come crashing to the earth like a mighty giant. Instead, one of the strangest things happened.

Eddie blinked vacantly as he looked at the two of them. Whimpering like a young child and cupping his hands to his bleeding mouth, he let out a strangled scream into the night.

"I'm done", he wheezed. "I…I don't want to get hurt no more…"

Just like that, the linebacker gave one last cry of exasperation, turned away, and dashed off toward the forest. The moment he reached the bushes and vanished from sight, the sound of a powerful gunshot made both Zane and Roxy turn back toward the center of the bog. Chris and Preston were tearing each other apart like animals. As Preston clawed at the athelete's face, they noticed that his eye was runny like wax and dripping down the side of his face. Preston, on the other hand, looked like his entire skull had been crushed to the side. Still, despite looking like a broken doll clobbered together, he was clawing at Chris like there was no tomorrow. Chris seemed to be trying to fire the sniper rifle, but the boy beating the life out of him made pumping it difficult.

"Holy shit…" Roxy gasped. "There's no way we can just let him do that to himself…"

"Damn right we can't", Zane said. "I don't care what he's said. Everything he's thinking right now is shit that Jude put into his head. I'm going over there to help him".

"Wait", Roxy said. "I'm coming too".

Zane shook his head. "There's no way I'm letting someone die because my entire plan fell apart on us". He paused. " Look, there's a stream a few yards away from the bog. Get out of here and sprint all the way there. Don't stop. Wait for me. If I'm not there in ten minutes, I'm dead".

"But I-

"Roxy, you and I both know that you're going to die if you stay here. In fact, we're all going to die if we stay here. That's why I'm going to save Preston and get the hell out of here".

Roxy sighed. Batting her greasy, black hair out of her eyes, she gave him a desperate look.

"I'd rather die together then be all alone out there. I was all alone all day until Chris caught me, Zane. I didn't exactly fend for myself that well".

"I'll be there", he cut in. "Just go". Feeling the need to say something else, he found himself smiling at her. "Nice kick by the way".

"Don't underestimate us girls", she said simply. "Especially the quiet ones. Anyway, if it's any consultation for you, I'll go. I never really got a chance to apologize for before. Sorry about Rory. I went a little nuts out there before. When I got out onto the battlefield, the first thing that went through my mind was that I needed to help people. I guess I helped him a little too much. In the end, it was really all just so I would feel better about myself". She paused and grinned a bloody smile back at him. "But that doesn't matter. Being alive is good enough for now".

"Good luck, Roxy".

"Good luck, Zane . I'll be seeing you soon".

Giving him a wink, she gave one last shudder at the carnage going on between the mascot and the quarterback before running out of the bog. She dashed past Rory's corpse, past the muskeg tree where they'd done all of the doomed planning and finally out in the woods.

* * *

"WEAK ASS LITTLE PUSSY!" Chris Barrister (Boy #2) roared.

He pounded the metal first-aid kit over and over into the head of Preston Tracy (Boy #18). Brain activity popped back and forth with every blow, giving everything a strange illusion of a dream. The back of his head was wet and warm, and by the feel of it, a fairly large wound had caked open from the metal box and was leaking down his head. He was dying. He could admit it now. _I'mdyingi'mdyingi'mdying…_

The last ten minutes had been the most painful in his entire life. Having been choked, stabbed, and beaten to a bloody pulp, he knew that he wasn't in any position to fight anymore. But he had to keep going. He had to keep going for the revenge. The revenge would make it all worth while. After all, that was what Jude had said, wasn't it?

The sniper rifle was cradled in his arms. It had been a long struggle, but he'd managed to keep it away from Chris's grip. As his head was beaten in over and over, having the gun was the only real victory he could think of. Unfortunately, the fact that he couldn't think straight enough to fire it sort of contradicted the whole thing.

"OH LORD, THIS ONE'S GOING TO BE GOOD!" the boy roared with malicious glee.

The box came down again and dented itself through Preston's glasses and into his eye. Feeling an explosion of pain fly through all of the nerves in his face, the boy screamed as his eye ball popped out of his head like a game of skee-ball. The glass from his lenses decorated him like icing sugar while the white and red wax dripped down his face in a messy paste.

"That's too bad", Chris said. "Well, your vision sucked anyway".

Chris discarded the metal box and threw it behind from. From the sound of it, syringes and various ointments spilled out into the mud with a clatter. His bloody vision distorting as he glanced up at the quarterback, he was vaguely aware of the much larger boy scurrying behind him and grasping a large needle from the squandered first-aid kit. Twirling it around in his fingers, he looked at it like it was a tool of art.

"It's not like this happening is that big of a loss", Chris taunted. "I mean, the team's going to miss our little mascot, but I'm sure we could get another faggot out on the field in a second. To tell you the truth, I thought for awhile that I wasn't going to make it", Chris admitted. "I doubted myself for a while. But then all I had to do was look at your face to know who was really getting out of here alive. You did your part, Preston. Without Eddie and you, I probably wouldn't have gotten this far. I'll have to express my gratitude. If there's anything left of you when I'm done, I'll ship it out to your parents. Anyway, it doesn't matter. This game isn't ending for me anytime soon".

Chris gave out a war-like cry and angled the syringe at Preston's face. Then, without warning, he brought it down in a swift motion.

But then the insight came.

As the syringe came down, the mascot suddenly had quite an insight on everything. Jude's philosophy was true. Being afraid of walking to the bathroom to take a piss in fear of being bullied. Sitting awkwardly in class while the others chattered on about parties and football games. Being alone at a cafeteria table. It all suddenly seemed to fit together in the much grander scheme of things. All of Jude's words of wisdom were true. There was no point in what people thought of you. On the other hand, cruel actions for no reason weren't forgivable. The only real option was revenge.

_Chris had tormented him…_

_They had all tormented him…_

The dying boy's hand shot up and grabbed Chris's wrist just before the syringe imbedded itself into his other eye.

"Sorry'", Preston said softly. He was smiling. "But it looks like it does end here after all".

He twisted back Chris's fingers with all of the strength he had left in his body. Getting many rewarding cracks at the quarterback screeched into the night, Preston's aching arms buckled up the sniper rifle as the boy backed away from him. Hardly able to see, he blindly fired a shot with recoil that rocked him like a canoe. The first thought resulted in nothing, but the second was much more rewarding. The bullet nailed Chris in the leg, sending him sprawling onto the ground in a mighty flip that looked like it shook the entire island. His jeans soaked with blood, the boy howled miserably as he looked at the mascot

"You can't…", Chris moaned. "There's no way…you can't…

Before Preston could fire off the final shot, there was the sound of heavy metal impacting onto skin. Coming up from behind Chris, Zane Barrens (Boy #1) held the first-aid kit by the hinges. He bashed it hard into Chris's head, getting a rewarding clanging sound that echoed through the entire bog. Looking like his head had just been put through a trash compactor and grinded sideways, the quarterback moaned and let his head fall limply to the ground.

"YOU LIKE THAT, HUH?" Zane screamed. 'YOU FUCKING LIKE THAT, DON'T YOU?"

It took Preston a second to realize that the criminal was not talking to the dying body, but to one of the many heat-sensing cameras around the island that was built in to one of the trees. The camera beeped its red light, but didn't respond. Moaning in exhaustion, Zane fell to his knees looking like he was about to have a mental breakdown.

Preston grinned. He didn't need a mental breakdown. No, the sanity of his mind wasn't what mattered now. He was dying. With a deep gash in his stomach begging his intestines to fall out and his runny eye dripping down his face, he almost like undead. Chris was dying too. His neck was still pulsing, but he wasn't doing much else besides lying down and mouthing odd words with his lips. He obviously wasn't going to play much football anymore.

Lying down on the wet earth and at the verge of finally leaving the game for good, Preston reached his hands out around him. He needed something. Anything to finish him off for good. It seemed like macabre luck that his hands found the bludgeon that he did, but in the end, who hadn't counted on Eddie dropping his assigned torque wrench when Chris had beaten his face in with the rifle earlier.

* * *

Zane Barrens (Boy #1) collapsed to his knees in exhaustion with the desire to scream. He wanted to scream so loud that the entire world could hear him. People had died, people had lost their minds, and somewhere else, people were in the safe comfort of their homes watching it all. The camera was taunting him, daring for him to smash it, but he knew he wouldn't. _Not after all of this._

Through the tears and blood on his face, he glanced over at Chris's misshapen head. Slowly losing all bodily function, his neck was still pulsing slowly as his eyes dilated back and forth. In a few minutes, he would be brain dead. Opening up the hinges of the first-aid kit in his hand, Zane felt a little better at the small amount of supplies. Aside from the many syringes that had broken, there were also various ointments and bandages. They would come in handy, but at the moment, he was almost considering not leaving the bog at all.

With a sigh, he gingerly touched his cheek. By the look of it, he'd cut up his cheek pretty badly and would probably need stitches if he ever got off the island. Massaging the wound in his belly from the syringe, he crawled over slowly to Preston's body lying in the dirt. Out of everyone in the bog, the mascot had definitely gotten in the worse. Along with his left eye being gouged out and the blood seeping from his head, the boy looked like he was going to give in to his wounds at any second. Caked in gore, dirt and god knows what else, Zane groaned and lay down in the mud beside the wounded boy.

"We did it man", Zane said with a forced smile. "We got him…"

Preston lay dying on the ground as he glanced up at him. Then, almost chuckling to himself with what little breathe he had left, he smiled.

"No", the mascot said with wild eyes. "No, it's not over yet".

To Zane's complete shock, the boy didn't stay down. Screaming out into the twilight, he sat up with the bloody contents of his belly still falling out him like a human piñata. The pain looked unbearable, but judging by the look of plain fury in his eyes, he didn't seem to care. Bowled over on the ground, Preston slowly crawled over to Chris's feebly stirring body. Then, tightening his grip on the wrench still in his hand, he raised it into the air above his head.

* * *

Despite the laws of biological function saying otherwise, Chris was still alive when he saw the torque wrench rising over his head. Feeling like his tombstone should have already been stenciled on it, he watched with his one working eye as it reached its arc in the moonlight. Part of him knew he should have been angry, maybe even sad. He didn't feel any of that though. All he could feel was a mild sense of dissatisfaction.

It didn't make any sense. He'd done everything right. After all, he'd followed the laws of human nature from the very beginning. The gene pool always needed to be cleansed out so the weak could die out and the strong could carry on. It was all Darwinian. It was all true. He'd been raised with that very philosophy from birth. _It's all true. I didn't do anything wrong. They cheated. There's no way I could have lost. I'm a winner. Winner…dad…sultans…go sultans...dad…coach…blood...don't want to run anymore...football…dad…dad…daddy…_

"I think I missed a tire, Dad", he thought in a daze.

But then the torque wrench came down and Chris had no reason to think anymore

* * *

"I WON! I WON! I WON!"

Preston slammed the wrench repeatedly into the quarterback's head. Chipping away layers of skin with each blow, his head dented in on itself like a concaved eggshell. His runny eye still running down his face, Chris resembled a jack-o-lantern that had been left to rot after the holidays. Pink foam dripped out of the cracks, and after a few more blows, it finally broke open in a pool of gore. From proud king, to angry tyrant, to corpse with the contents its head spewed open on the ground, it almost looked like the boy's devotion to human evolution was backfiring on him.

Zane's mouth was agape as he watched the mutilation. It was like something out of one of those 80's gore-fests that you could always find in bargain bins. Preston didn't even stop. Sobbing into the muddy bog with his glasses askew on his face, the boy grabbed the brains of Chris Barrister, formally Boy #2, and tore them apart in his hands. The brown pulp ran down his arms as he kept screaming and tearing. Zane had the awful feeling for a second that he would be screaming until the end of time.

"I WON! I WON…I...I won...I…"

Finally, tearing apart cells into a runny mess of pulp, the boy looked at him like he was about to have a heart attack. His entire body was shaking. His eyes were no longer the wild ones that had been given to him by Jude. Instead, they were completely panicked. It looked like he'd suddenly realized what he had just done. Looking caught between words, his eyes widened to the size of saucers as his hands crept to his throat like he was choking.

"Dude…", the boy croaked.

Then he fell over onto the ground. The four red gunshot wounds in his back stood out in sharp contrast to his white shirt. Soaked in perspiration, brains, and grime, Preston Tracy (Boy #18) died with those furious eyes long gone beneath his glasses and a smile still on his face.

_Holy shit…_

For a moment, Zane had absolutely no clue what to do. With the bog suddenly silent, he felt surrounded by corpses. All of them were glaring down at him, mocking him for failing again. Almost at the verge of throwing up as he looked around, he looked at all of them. Chris with what very little remained of his head looking like a piñata of gore. Preston's eyes still seeming like they were staring when they were face-down in the mud. Rory's decaying blue flesh still bringing out that ghostly smile.

The moon was full over the island. With the moonlight shining through the trees, he felt like he was in a spotlight on stage. The whole audience was laughing at him, a world away from the bog. It just didn't make any sense. Revolution was supposed to have a happy ending. After all, the real patriots who decided to stand up for themselves had always won. That was just the way they'd always been told that life worked. So why had they lost? Why, after all of those hours of careful planning, had they lost?

"I'm sorry Preston", Zane said shortly.

Preston didn't say anything back, partly because of his face being buried in the mud and partly because he didn't look up to saying much of anything anymore. Realizing he now had a severe migraine, he moaned and put his hand to his head, looking away from all of the dead bodies.

"_We wanted escape",_ he thought. _"All we got were a shitload of gunshots"._

_Hey wait a second…._

There had been six gunshots. The first had whizzed past Chris's head. The other four were all imbedded into Preston's back. _So what had happened to the sixth one?_

Suddenly, Zane realized that the sixth gunshot he heard hadn't been the sound of a sniper rifle being fired with strong recoil. It had been a single dull thud like a cork being removed from the world's biggest whisky bottle. Although he only knew the bare minimum about guns, he knew that the sixth shot hadn't been a rifle. It had been a pistol.

Feeling his stomach rising up on him again, Zane glanced over toward the bushes when he noticed a strange leaking sound. For an odd second it was comparable to someone taking a piss, but after a moment, he realized there was no way. It was the sound a heavy water balloon would make after being pricked by a needle. Kneeling up from the ground with the sniper rifle in hand, he walked over cautiously to the bushes. As he came closer, the sound was becoming even clearer, and after a few more steps, Zane wasn't just hearing it. He was stepping in it.

Glancing down and feeling his heart skip a beat, he saw a dark, red stream percolating out of the bushes and into the wet bog. _He was stepping in blood._

Peeking his head over the foliage and seeing what was lying there, the boy's blood ran cold.

The corpse of Eddie Dunnerman (Boy #4) was sprawled out on the ground. The blood that had been seeping out of the bushes had been coming from his throat, or at least what remained of it after the pistol had blown it away. In the radiance of the moonlight, the blood coating his windpipe rose up in a gory mist of particles. His bloodshot eyes were rolled over to the white like egg yolks, reflecting the massive frame of the boy that had shot him.

Hunched over with his back facing Zane, Darren Warner (Boy #20) seemed to be struggling to reload his pistol. Rocking back and forth, his beefy arms were speckled in red dots from shooting Eddie in the head. It was almost impossible to put together, to macabre, but it all suddenly made sense. Jude's plan had worked perfectly and resulted in a series of chain reactions that had murdered more than half of the people in the bog. Chris going mental with the idea of winning. Eddie bashing him in the head in a desire to escape. Preston gaining the tunnel-vision of beating Chris and giving up his life for it.

Jude didn't enjoy killing people. He just liked ruining their lives. Although he had never known it before, Zane knew there was a difference now.

He couldn't stand it anymore. There was no way. Spitting up vomit that burned his throat into the dirt, he groaned and dashed away as fast as he could, knowing he wouldn't stop until he reached the riverbank. He didn't even consider going back for the first-aid kit. His eyes too dried out to cry, he passed all of the bodies. _Chris. Preston. Rory._ _It wasn't supposed to be like this. It really wasn't._

Hardly able to see where he was going as he vanished into the forest, Zane ran and hoped for the best.

* * *

**Eliminated**

**(Boy #2) Barrister, Chris**

**(Boy #4) Dunnerman, Eddie**

**(Boy #18) Tracy, Preston**

* * *

**26 Students Remaining**


	28. Day 2: Hour 26: 26 Students Remaining

"I thought the screaming would never end", Travis Igolovosky (Boy #7) said with a shudder.

Tristan Igolovosky (Boy #8) glanced over at his brother glumly but didn't say anything. Sitting against the equipment shed, the two boys had listened awestruck as the sounds of gunshots and frantic yelling ran across the island for almost seven minutes solid. The noises had been haunting. One had been the choking sound somebody would make if they were asphyxiated by a plastic bag. Another had been a dull thud like a hammer pounding into god know's what. At times it sounded like the sounds of the massacre would finally end, but it didn't. It just went on and on like a carousal of death.

But then it had stopped. In the dead of the night, the screaming had finally soothed into a mild cry that had eventually died out. The two boys had been left wondering exactly what the hell had happened.

"There's going to be a big list on the next announcement, isn't there?" Travis asked sadly.

"Probably", Tristan responded. "I only counted six gunshots though".

"Gunshots don't mean anything. All of that screaming was so goddamned awful. There's more deaths from blades wounds in this game than there are to guns anyway".

"Guns don't kill people", Tristan noted. "People kill people. And how the hell do you know all of this?"

"There's no denying I'm a fanboy", Travis said defensively. "Mom and Dad didn't cash in on those box sets on Christmas every year for nothing. The program's hardcore. Well, at least until I was in it. That was when it just started to suck".

Tristan sighed. They may have been blood relatives, but there were times where he just couldn't stand Travis's ignorance. A geek with an obsession with bloodshed, he was quite the opposite of everything Tristan looked for in a person's decency. Antisocial, rude and probably having anger management that had never been checked out, his brother had a massive ego that seemed ready to deflate at any second. But it never did. All it did was grow until it found a reason to hate everything.

Tristan was almost the polar opposite. Raised on all-American values, he put faith in everything, especially the government, until it did him wrong. Up until the point of the game, he'd admittedly been the stereotype that a teen his age was expected to live up to. He was a member of half of Spanish River's athletic teams, class treasurer of student council and a known ladies man who went through more girls in a week then most people did in a year. But in the end though, it just didn't give him any satisfaction. Living the, "model", life that everyone thought he had wasn't all it was cracked up to be. When he attended the all-night parties filled with drunken cheerleaders, he put up a fake smile and waited until the night was over. Everything just felt so wrong.

But there was no way he could ever feel as wrong as he did around his brother. He loved him and would say it to anyone who picked on the poor guy, but there were moments where his ego just got the best of them. Especially times like the concert. If there was one time that completely proved Travis's stupidity, it was that damn rock concert. It had been intended solely as a trip for his hockey team, one last bit of fun before they went to state finals the following weekend, but it had turned into an unforeseen disaster when his mom asked him to drag Travis along. It wasn't that he wasn't willing to bring his brother. It was just that he would have rather just saved him the humiliation. Role-playing geeks and hockey players just didn't tend to mix that well. There was going to be a hell of a lot of tension.

But as it turned out, there hadn't been any tension at all. Sure, things had been awkward in the beginning, especially when they had all piled into the car together for about half an hour of silence, but things had definitely improved as the night went on. Travis had actually socialized with his brother's friends to the point where he had become one of the group. Breaking out of his shell from behind the computer monitor, he'd transformed into a new person throughout the night. It had been a shock to all of them when he'd run into a giant mosh pit and returned with a bloody nose, still grinning like he was having the time of his life. Things couldn't have been looking better.

And then those girls came.

From what Tristan could piece together, the three of them, all popular and blonde, were from Travis's history class. The moment they saw the boy they knew as an antisocial geek having the time of his life, they descended on him like wolves and started to tease him mercilessly. A normal person had the self-respect to just walk away. That was what Tristan knew he would have done. Then again, he'd never been in a situation where he was the victim. His role on the state-winning hockey team as the goalie had put him at the top of the social ladder while his role-playing brother could hardly be mentioned in the same sentence as a ladder. On the other hand though, torturing anybody was unforgivably cruel. He tended to go against the stereotypes of being an athlete and acted as a pacifist who usually tried to break up a fight when it broke out.

Travis hadn't backed away. Instead, glaring at all of the girls as they giggled at him, he had called them all, "herpes-ridden whores who were all going to grow up, gain weight and spend the rest of their life as housewives".

It turned out that the girls were all dating three of the biggest guys in school. It also turned out that they had attended the concert too. When the final band in the line-up played and the enormous crowd filed out of the sweltering room, the three jocks quickly singled Travis out and dragged him behind a dumpster in the parking lot. By the time Tristan and his buddies from the hockey team had found them, Travis was being curb stomped to death with a face that was completely sodden in blood.

Tristan had acted quickly. Running up to one of the jocks, he knocked the wind out of him by kicking him in the stomach. With the others shocked, he'd taken the free opportunity and bashed their skulls together. They ended up fighting back in the end, and sure, he ended up spending the night in the emergency room and getting stitches across his cheek, but at least his brother was safe. That was the thing about Travis that always angered him. He may have found a reason to hate everyone and he may have been an idiot, but he was family. _You just couldn't turn your back on your family like that…_

"Tristan?"

Tristan was snapped back to reality. "What?"

"Have you ever really put any thought into how you're going to die out here?' Travis asked.

"Well, not really…"

"I guess that's cause you think we're getting out", he sighed. "but we're not. We're going to die like everyone else on this fucking island and we can't do anything about it. This rebellion isn't going to go anywhere, y'know. There's so many ways we could die too. Shot. Stabbed. Burned. Did you know stab wounds actually outnumber gunshot wounds as causes of death in the program?"

"Why the hell are you still telling me this?" Tristan asked. "do you just want me to feel even worse?"

"Well, all that screaming really got me thinking. Everyone's dropping like flies. And I mean people that sat behind us in class a few days ago. It's a weird feeling. Especially the ones that you were close too".

"Well, you haven't really lost anyone so far", Tristan said. "I wouldn't worry about that until the time comes…"

"Screw all of them", Travis spat. "They're all just running around like chickens with their heads cut off. The way it's going, nobody's going to win. And right now, I'm thinking that the pros on playing the game outnumber the cons".

"You're nuts", Tristan shot back. "they isn't just people you see walking in the hall. They're real people with real lives. For Christ's sake, we've known some of them for years. Remember how we both went to pre-school with Leana?"

"The bitch is dead. But yeah, I remember".

"Wouldn't you get any feeling of sympathy if you were about to kill someone you remember seeing as a five-year old?"

"No", Travis said simply. "I'd pull the trigger, blow their brains out sky high and run. That's what you do in this game. Playing it is a natural instinct".

"You're a coward, man. A pretty stuck-up one, but a coward. It's not going to be that easy once you're really faced with pulling the trigger. That's the part where it's going to get hard. So if that serves as your answer, I'm not going to go out there and slaughter everyone. This game is unconstitutional. It's fucked up and that's all there is to it".

He dared his brother to say something back. The nerd stared at him for a second, looking like he was about to say something else. It was the same face he had always seen him make before he spit out a barrage of cuss words on his online-gaming networks. He didn't say anything though. Shaking his head, Travis turned his back to his brother and took a few steps away. Watching him walk away, Tristan sighed and rested his head against the equipment shed. He needed another cigarette and he needed one bad. He wasn't normally a smoker by any means, but he knew there was no way he would step above water if he didn't take his mind off things. If it wasn't Travis's epiphany of playing the game that had gotten to him, it was the growing realization that they might as well have been left to die. Peter had vanished into the unknown and left him to assemble a revolution with his brother. _His stuck-up coward of a brother…_

"He's family", he thought. "he may be different, but he's still family. You'd die for him any day. You can't-

He suddenly heard Travis let out a shrill scream. Any hopes for a cigarette were immeadidly abandoned. Spinning around, he only saw a glimpse of his brother's leg vanish behind the equipment shed. What _the hell?_

There was a nightmarish howling sound from the bushes beside the equipment shed. The scream obviously belong to a human, but it sounded like all of the world's water had been funneled down someone's throat. Along with that, it sounded bloody and clogged like every single gasp was complete pain.

Without warning, an enormous monster rose out of the bushes. It seemed to blend in with the dark with only its piercing, bloodshot eyes shining through. Covered in dirt and built moose-like with its muscles, it howled at them but didn't make any coherent words. This seemed to be more than enough for Travis though. He could hear his brother screaming like a girl from the other side of the equipment shed. Along with being a coward, he also appeared to be a complete hypocrite. _He talks all of that shit about killing people and then he runs away when the time comes to do it. Smooth bro. Really smooth…_

Backing into the equipment shed and swearing under his breath, Tristan watched in horror as the monster ambled forward. It arms were outstretched, almost calling out for him. He glanced around for something to defend himself with, but there was nothing. The grenades he'd been supplied with were near the pit they'd dug. With no means of defense, he felt his heart pound like a jackhammer as the monster edged closer. It was going to kill him. He could almost feel its breath on him.

Travis's haunting words came back to him. _You can die in so many ways out here…_

There was no time to waste. This wasn't just his life on stake. Cringing and rushing forward, Tristan butted his elbow hard into the creature's face. It howled out like the sound of whale's blowhole, collapsing to the ground. What looked like rose petals splattered into the air from its nose. It fell to the ground and shook the whole earth, but that only gave Tristan more time to attack. Kicking it hard in the face and getting a rewarding crack, he began to pummel it's face in with all of his might. The belief in humanity wasn't worth it any more. This was a monster. He'd seen it rise out of the dark bushes like it had risen straight out of hell. It had tried to hurt him, but more importantly, it had tried to hurt his brother…

"_You got him_…" Tristan thought. "_You got him good…hey....oh shit…wait minute…_

The athlete's jaw fell open when he realized that what he was pounding his fists into was actually a human. Not just a human but specifically the defeated mess of Winston Van Buren (Boy #19). The entire front of the boy's shirt was soaked with perspiration and gore from his partially slit throat. His African-American skin had gone pale from the massive blood loss. However, what really got to Tristan about the boy were his eyes. They had just wanted acceptance. They'd unfortunately gotten quite the opposite.

Tristan's eyes grew wide. "Dude…I…

Winston let out a mighty sob and leapt up from the ground. Clutching his throat that looked like it had drained his body dry, he didn't stop running when he reached the bushes. Sobbing into the night, he dashed through the woods still clutching his throat. His guttural screaming echoed for a small while before it vanished into nothingness. Tristan was left standing there in shock with his fists stained in blood.

"Is…Is it gone?"

Travis had crawled out from behind the equipment shed with his entire body shaking. His voice cracked when he spoke.

"Is it gone?" his brother whimpered.

Tristan looked over at him with weary eyes. "Yeah, he's gone".

"Can I have a cigarette?"

"Fresh out", Tristan replied. "We smoked the last of them…"

"Doesn't really matter", Travis said. "I can pass for awhile. Anyway, I think you just proved me right…"

Tristan stared. "What do you mean?"

"Playing the game", Travis replied. "is a natural instinct".

Gazing away from his brother, Tristan looked out into the woods from where the creature had come. Things felt so wrong. It wasn't hurting people that got to him. A born athlete who pushed people down for pride, he had always felt guilt knowing he could plow people to the ground with no remorse. Fighting just came naturally to him. If there was one thing that got to him now though, it was just that no life philosophies seemed to apply anymore. On a normal day, he would have gladly assisted a dying person like a first instinct. Instead, he had judged them as an inhuman monster and beaten the shit out of them. The game was changing him. It was changing everyone.

Tristan stared out into the trees and bit his lip. _C'mon Peter. Get us home._

* * *

There had been a time in the Battle Royale when Adam Spencers (Boy #15) had been frightened. In fact, throughout the last eight hours, it had been even worse than that. He'd been on the verge of having a complete mental breakdown. Everything in the dark forest seemed to be alive. He saw hunters waiting for him and their rifles angling at his head from the trees. He knew it was all in his imagination, he knew it was all just a dark fantasy, but that didn't matter. In his mind, everybody had been out to get him. There hadn't been a time during the entire day when he hadn't thought of his life being at stake.

But he was struggling to put all of that behind him now. Especially since he'd struck gold in the last few hours.

Sitting in the basement of the sunken-in bungalow, Adam felt like passing out due to the humidity. The room was like a sitting in a sauna and the many flies, mosquitoes and gnats were pecking at him like a lantern they were all being drawn to. He'd taken off his shirt to stop himself from passing out, but still, it was boiling. Glancing out at the weapon in front of him, he couldn't help but feel the smallest bit of accomplishment.

"_You are a fucking god…",_ he kept telling himself. _"You may not think so but you're a fucking god…you're destined for things greater than this…"_

The last several hours had moved in a series of hazy snap-shots. After the altercation on the trail where he had been abandoned and left to die, Adam had been given time to think. Running through the forest with the growing realization of snipers hiding at every corner, he'd thought about a lot. _Death…dying…death…mostly dying though…_

But then he'd found it. Passing the border of the school, he'd seen something on the ground glimmering in the moonlight. At the time, it almost seemed like a gift from God. Upon closer inspection, his heart had given a leap when he'd realized that he'd stumbled upon one of the greatest weapons in the game. A Daewoo K4 grenade launcher with a full crate of ammunition. Someone had buried it in the ground and then covered it in leaves in some kind of effort to prevent a massacre.

That was the funny part to him. Adam wasn't somebody who would regularly start a massacre. In fact, he tended to distance himself as farthest away from the action as possible. It wasn't his choice either. Practically from birth, he had been sheltered away by his over-protective parents. He'd been oblivious to the pains of the outside world and all of the bad people that went with it. In short, his family had been living the American dream with Easter egg hunts every May and fireworks every July. Even when the Republic of Greater East Asia had moved in and a war had been going on practically outside their window, his ever-smiling parents had always insisted that there was nothing to worry about.

But there was. Intellectual even if he was a bit arrogant, Adam was fully aware that the world had taken both an economic and political downfall. Along with that, the concept of human life had declined immensely. With school shootings happening on the average of once a week, he had always wondered what his parents would think if he came home in a body bag. Maybe that would destroy their illusion of perfect, little America.

Even when he found the grenade launcher, Adam had looked at the heat-sensing camera built into the tree and wondered if they were watching. Part of him thought that they would just wash him away just like the rest of their troubles. Hell, when his grandmother died of pancreatic cancer, his mother had been smiling the next day with brand-new cell phone because he was, "doing so well in school". It was sickening. But he'd pushed the thoughts of his parents away. Almost maliciously, he'd picked up the heavy weapon and crate and dragged them through the mud. It took three hours of wandering, going from scattered building to scattered building and seeing what they could offer in terms of protection. When almost all of them turned up short and his arms had begun to ache from dragging the launcher, he'd begun to wonder if he'd ever find a place to rest his head. As it turned out, he didn't have to look much longer.

He'd picked one of the most cryptic-looking buildings the island had to offer. Most of the buildings on the north shore had fallen to disrepair, and the bungalow was no exception. Water erosion had caused the basement to become flooded and a nesting ground for every bug known to man. And then there was the fact that the smell almost made him throw up. But if it looked bad enough, the odds were nobody else would be venturing inside. Walking through the front door, he'd entered a small foyer with a staircase to the basement and a door leading upstairs. The door was locked, so lugging the grenade launcher against the steps, he'd journeyed down into the basement. Almost immeadidly, the mosquitoes and gnats that picked him alive had made him choose a nickname for the hellish building. _The Bughouse._

Wading through the dirty water in the basement that went up to his knees, his eyes had been hurt by an eye-level window that peered out on the ground. There was scattered junk everywhere. A lifeguard chair. A molding sofa. A refrigerator. Getting a morbid idea but wanting to survive, he'd thrusted the grenade launcher with all of this might up to the window. Angling it out, he'd constructed what was technically a ground-level sniping device capable of blowing feet to smithereens.

And that was where he was now. Having forced the lifeguard chair up against the window, he sat in his throne with his prize and gazed out through the window. He was safe, and that was all that mattered. As long as he was safe, he would have a sense of home. He would be oblivious to the dangers of the outside world and all of the bad people. As his parents had told him, bad people were everywhere in the world. It was best to just signal them out and let them be. Oblivious to that the people he abysmally judged as, "bad", were just people that were the least bit different from him, he looked at the world from his sheltered home. _It's bad out there. It's good in here. The bad guys are running everywhere. They take your friends. And Mitch had the nerve to just wander off with them…._

Adam gritted his teeth as he tightened his grip on the launcher. Mitch was a traitor. It just wasn't fair. When the prospect of life and death came along, you didn't abandon your best friend and leave him to die. Even worse than that, you didn't befriend two complete sociopaths instead. It wasn't that there was anything necessarily wrong with Terry and Luke. It was just the fact that they were different. Adam judged everybody like they were fresh-out of a stereotype catalogue. If somebody didn't have the same sense of normality as the rest of the world, they were different. And if they were different, they could be dangerous. What was stopping either of those freaks from stabbing him in the back when he wasn't looking?

"_You've got all the luck in the world right here, Spencers",_ he thought. _"There's no reason to be scared anymore. Just fire a grenade and chill out. Think of a song or something. The 70's were great. Everyone's gotta' love the 70's. Three Dog Night. Pink Floyd. Talking Heads. 'I can't seem to face up to the facts. I'm so nervous and I can't relax. I can't sleep cause' my bed's on fire. Don't touch me I'm a real live wire. Psycho killer…'"_

Music wouldn't help. He was still scared and his damn fingers just wouldn't stop trembling. Feeling the gnats in the Bughouse practically eat him alive, he gazed out the window again and hoped for the best.

* * *

Although the boy didn't understand much, he found himself shocked that he was still alive. It seemed like an audience behind him was cracking up. He'd committed every action in the game that guaranteed death, he'd been what seemed like fatally wounded and worst of all, he'd made it his goal for the remainder of his life to protect someone else's life instead of his own. _I should be dead…I belong in a grave…_

Winston Van Buren (Boy #19) ran through the woods with his mind racing. Maybe the reason he was living wasn't because he was a stubborn survivor. Most people with a partially severed throat would bend over and wait to die, but not the boy that his classmates had nicknamed, "Moose". Well-built and muscular, his body had been in decent enough shape to burn out the rest of its energy in a game of survival. He'd cupped his hands over the wound in an effort to stop the bleeding, but unfortunately, it hadn't done much. He'd lost a very large quantity of blood and the entire front of his once-gray shirt was red and stained.

Hunched over the in the trail, Winston suddenly stopped dead in his tracks and hunched over. The ground was begging for him to come down and meet it, but somehow, he managed to lay back against a tree and steady himself. If the Grim Reaper was real, he had a feeling that he was re-writing him all over his list just for the hell of it. The world liked to see him in pain. In fact, in the last several hours, all Winston had ever known was pain. He'd felt emotional pain when he'd been betrayed by Mare. He'd felt physical pain when she'd slit his throat. And he felt physiological pain from the weaving trees in the forest almost acting like hands that were going to snatch him away. _Pain, pain, pain…_

"You're going to make it, Moose…" he sputtered through the blood. "Just get to her and die there…die with her…just don't die here..."

He knew he was kidding himself. Still, he kept running.

* * *

**No Students Eliminated**

* * *

**26 Students Remaining**

* * *

**A/N: Sorry if this chapter was a little shorter than others, but I needed to slow things down a little after the massacre. The pace will definitley be picking up very soon. A new poll is up on my profile asking who you think is going to kick the bucket next.**


	29. Day 2: Hour 27: 26 Students Remaining

_"Harris Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnny Ray..."_

_The boy was groggy as he awoke on the couch. Feeling the fresh smell of liquor all over the room and a thumping hangover, he was able to put two and two together and figure out what had happened. He was in his basement. And in that very basement, the night before, there'd been a party. He didn't like to think of himself as the guy who threw a wild party the moment his parents got out of town, but with program season coming to an end, it seemed first nature to have a good time before his parents got back from their fucked-up three-day marathon down the street._

_Groaning from his migraine as he sat up from the couch, Zane Barrens looked around. His basement was usually a mess, but now, it looked like it had been the victim of a tornado. Half of the things that could have been broken in the room had been broken. CDs were piling out of the cabinet in a flood. Empty cans of booze were lying everywhere. A single lampshade was in the center of the floor._

_Zane sighed and sat up from the moldy couch. Things had really gotten out of control. It had originally been just a small get-together. Just him and a few friends. Skylar, Jesse, J.C, Rory. It hadn't turned out that way though. Word had ended up spreading fast and roughly half of the student body had turned up. At first he'd yelled at them to stop, but seeing how his parents were gone, he didn't see much of a point. After all, they'd wandered off to watch a game where kids killed each other. They weren't justified to care if a few of them wrecked their basement. So he'd joined in, drank a little and now, he had a headache that made him feel like he'd been hit by a wrecking ball._

"_Everyone's gone now…" he muttered to himself. "J.C left with a bunch of her friends around midnight…Rory got so stoned that his cousin had to drag him home…"_

_The night was so hard to recall that actually had to talk to himself to remember it. Struggling to get up from the couch, he yelped out loud when he realized that there was another human being in the room. A boy with stringy, blonde hair was slouched over in the corner with a line of drool coming out of his mouth. Stirring as Zane got up, he suddenly opened his eyes wide and looked around frantically._

"_What…what happened?" Skylar Tierren moaned. "Oh shit, my head…"_

"_Party's over, man", Zane said. "Time to get on home"._

"_I can't even get up", Skylar moaned. "one hell of a night, wasn't it? Where's Jesse?"_

"_She started walking home around three. She tried to wake you up but you were too busy getting wasted and singing to every song that came up like the whole thing was a karaoke. You were talking to everyone you saw". He paused. "I've never seen you like that before…"_

"_I get more outgoing when I'm drunk", Skylar sighed. "I'm going to end up an alcoholic one day. Gonna have to stop soon if I want to get out of this town and start a real life. Was Jesse pissed?"_

"_Probably", Zane replied. "she didn't look happy"._

_As Skylar moaned and fell back against the wall, Zane suddenly realized that the music had been playing all night. He'd just been to focused on his growing migraine to notice it. The song was very fast-paced and blasting out of the boom box on the counter._

"_We didn't start the fire__  
No we didn't light it  
But we tried to fight it…"_

_Limping to the stairs with difficulty and hearing Skylar mutter something under his breath, Zane started to walk up. As he ascended the stairs, he passed memorabilia taped to the walls. Pictures he'd done in art class. Baby photos. Little league snapshots. Times were better than. The world and all of the people in it had made a lot more sense . Rolling back his head and feeling a sharp pain, he didn't deny the fact that the party hadn't been for entertainment. If anything, it had been to piss his parents off as much as possible. Lost to the prospect that simple things like human life existed, they spent most of their time living the American dream and decorating their front yard for every holiday known to God. In his perspective, they were like puppets on strings. Governmental cogs. Reaching the door after the final step, he got a quick wake-up call from his parents. There was a sticky note taped to the inside of it._

"_Game ended early. We got home last night. Heard the noise. Didn't want to disturb you and your friends. Hope you had fun drinking. Be a man and grow up"_

_The way, "grow up", was underlined was enough of a hint. Zane groaned. He was in a deep shit now. Opening the door, he was suddenly greeted by the sound of muffled screaming blaring out of a stereo. Walking out into his foyer and craning his neck toward the living room, he felt his heart sink. Watching the game was bad enough, but the moment his parents had got home, they had started watching all the re-runs they could gather with their eyes glued to the screen. _

_Both of them were sitting on the couch with mugs of coffee on the table in front of them. Nora Barrens was a kind-looking woman at first glance. Gray-haired with beady eyes hidden under square glasses, she looked at a first appearance as someone who would bake cookies rather than watch kids dance in their friends' blood. His father was sitting next to her with a cigarette in his hand and his coffee untouched. Bordering overweight with high blood pressure from anger management, the only reason Michael Barrens liked his job as a police chief was because he had authority. And authority meant control._

"_Who won?" Zane asked as he walked into the room._

"_Miranda Sierra", his father answered. "She beat out Paul Drayton around dawn. And don't think you're just going to start a conversation like that. I couldn't sleep until dawn because of the noise coming from downstairs"._

"_I just invited a few friends over" Zane said. "and you could have gotten off your ass and yelled at us instead of leaving a note on the door"._

"_The game was on the aftermath re-runs. I'm not going to miss my favorites just because you and a few of your pothead friends wanted to have a party"._

"_My friends aren't-_

"_Don't start that", his father snapped. "you even smell like weed. I hope you had fun at that party because you're going to be stuck in the house for the rest of the month"._

_Zane rested his head against the doorway and sighed. He normally would have yelled at his father and spit out every insult he knew, but it wasn't worth it. The way his father had his eyes glued to the screen said the truth. He just refused to see the bigger picture that he watching actual people die. Pushing the coffee farther away on the counter and taking a drag from the cigarette, his dad locked eyes with him._

"_Those thoughts aren't good", he said. "that's all anarchy going through your head and anarchy never leads anywhere. It's best to go with the flow"._

"_The flow sucks", Zane said bluntly. "and there's no way I'm going to sit down next to you and-_

"_Be quiet", he snapped. "It's Miranda!"_

_Everybody in the living room watched as the tan girl swung out the pair of garden shears into the boy's throat. With a single line of blood spurting out of his mouth, his eyes widened as she pulled back the mighty clippers hard and beheaded him. A shot of his head spinning in the moonlight flashed onto the screen as his neck spurted out arterial blood. Covered from head to toe in gore, the girl collapsed to the ground with the shears still in her hands. Fading to black, the words, "Eliminated, Boy #5, Drayton", flashed onto the screen._

"_That's patriotism", his father said. He took another drag from his cigarette. "That's dying for your country and sorting out the rebels from the damn good people. It's what America's all about"._

_This was the breaking point. Zane clenched his fist as he watched the girl on the screen stumble away from the body with tears in her eyes. Something needed to be said._

"_No", he said. His lip was trembling. "This is fucked up. This is the reason there's people bombing streets every day and kids coming into school with guns every week. There's no difference now between playing a game of fucking checkers and killing your best friend. Everything's a game to people like you. Our founding fathers wouldn't kick back with a beer and watch their own youth shoot each other to shit. They would do something about it and solve the problems in the world. This country doesn't even give a shit about things like love anymore"_

_He was almost screaming by the time he was finished. Still, his parents seemed relatively unfazed by his words. They sat back in their couch and watched the massacre on their brand-new flat-screen. His mother took a sip of her coffee with her brittle hands. Shaking his head, Zane started back toward the basement door and walked down the staircase. This time he didn't even glance once at the memorabilia on the wall._

_The moment he reached the ground he became aware of a gagging cough coming from his open bathroom. Along with that, there was a sour, acidic smell. Peeking through the door, he saw Skylar hunched over the toilet and vomiting out a night's worth of booze. His friend slammed the lid and moaned as he walked in. _

"_People are messed up", Zane said softly._

"_You're telling me", Skylar said as he forced himself up from the floor. "they got me drunk and they took everything…my wallet….my sweatshirt…I'm going to have a great time explaining to my mom why my shirt is covered in vomi-_

"_Forget the party. If you want some real entertainment you should listen to my parents up there"._

_Skylar grinned. "Are they pulling the whole, "true American patriot", thing again?"_

"_It's worse than that", Zane sighed. "they're not going to see the truth unless it's staring them in the face. Nobody is. The world is too caught up in the media and all of their stupid shit to realize what's really going on. Someone has to do something"._

"_So why don't we then?" Skylar said as he bent back down to the toilet. "why don't we do something?"_

_But his words no longer mattered. The cogs in Zane's mind had started working. As Skylar vomited out a final mouthful of alcohol, his friend couldn't help but smile. It was a good idea. It was a dangerous one that had to be approached right, but it was a good idea._

"_Then we will", Zane said. "we'll be the ones that are going to go out there and get things done"._

_Skylar stared. "What?"_

"_Let's hold a protest. We've been to enough of them to know what to do. All we have to do is get the word out and we'll have half of the town marching toward city hall. Sure, there's going to be resistance, but if we do it peacefully, no one's going to get hurt"._

"_But people always get hurt", Skylar argued. "remember the riot in Delgado we went to a few months ago? They didn't just kill that kid with the megaphone, man. They fucking mutilated him. I don't know about this. I'm just as much for all of this anti-government shit as you are, but I'm not getting into this mess if I'm going to die because of it. I don't want to die"._

"_No one's going to die. We'll make sure of it. We'll do everything we can to make sure we get everyone who wants peace fighting on the good side. Violence is what we're protesting against in the first place. We just have to play the right cards and hope for a little bit of luck"._

_There was an awkward silence aside from the Billy Joel song still blaring out of the boom box. The smell of cheap liquor in the room was now more powerful than ever. Glancing at his friend with tired, pain-filled eyes that reflected his hangover, Skylar finally smiled._

"_I'm in"._

_And with that, the biggest mistake of their entire lives had been set into motion._

* * *

"Funny how things have a way of falling apart", Zane Barrens (Boy #1) spoke. "Even when the good guys are supposed to win it. It just doesn't make sense. None of it does. I mean, one of my best friends died a few hours ago. His head got blown to shit. We should've gotten out just because of that, but we didn't. Even more people died and it's all because of me. Rory, if you can hear me right now, I'm sorry. I let you down big time. Everything you said about the country went down the drain with the rest of them. They say the country's founded on revolution, too. But that's all a memory. The constitution? Human rights? We might as well just let it all burn now. The world's gone to hell".

Roxy Patterson (Girl #12) gazed over sadly at her partner when he finished speaking. Not talking to anyone in particular, Zane had come out with a series of strange inner monologues. For a while she'd thought that he was speaking to her, but after awhile, she noticed it was something else. The heat-sensing cameras in the tree made awful, electronic hissing sounds as they passed, angling at them as they walked through the forest. It hadn't taken much thought for her to figure out that Zane was expressing his thoughts for the game's viewers. He'd mostly talked about the game itself, but there were times when he just seemed to ramble on until he couldn't even seem to remember why he was speaking. He'd talked about music censorship, reality television, and in the end, basically anything that seemed to piss him off. _That's okay though. He's just letting off some fuel. You don't have to be scared. He's a good person, right girl?_

"They don't give a shit, do they?" he said suddenly.

Roxy blinked. "Are you talking to me now?"

"You, anyone, I don't care. Someone might as well listen. I know they have microphones on those cameras and it would be nice if the viewers back home got a chance to hear what I'm thinking. They're probably not even focusing on me though. They've probably got enough of us from the bog just now".

They walked through the woods side-by-side with the moonlight shining down on them. While Roxy walked without any means of defense, Zane had the sniper rifle cradled in his arms. They'd considered going back for the first-aid kit and water-logged pistol, but after the hell they'd seen in the bog, neither of them felt inclined to go back for whatever reason. Besides, all the pistol could remind them of was their obliterated revolution.

"So", Roxy said. "have any plans now?"

"Run, shoot when I have to, and wait until the clock counts down to get me out of here for good", Zane replied curtly. "then there's escape but I don't have much faith in that anymore. Especially after what just happened".

"So you're okay dying out here? I mean, you're okay just waiting until these things blow up?"

She tapped the collar fastened around her neck. When he'd met her by the riverbank the red light corresponding with her pulse had been rapid, almost like she was at the verge of a heart attack, but it had died down considerably during their walk. She'd calmed down a lot. He was just glad the collar wasn't exploding.

"Who knows?" Zane said. "maybe there's a way out of these things. And maybe there's someone on the island who can figure it out".

"The government spent their time designing these just so we couldn't escape", Roxy sighed. "sorry to be a pessimist over here, but I have the feeling that a teenager isn't going to be able to hack into them and get them off".

"Hey, if there's any good in the world left somebody's tinkering away on these things right now and trying to get us off".

"If there was any good in the world", Roxy said with a smile. "we wouldn't be here".

Zane smiled back. "Well, I can't argue with that. But there's definitely some kids around here who I think could figure a way out of this mess. I would've definitely said Risa before she died, but I'd put my money on Nathan and Peter. Nathan probably read more books than I'll ever read in my life and Peter always seemed like the anarchy ty-HEY!"

Before he could continue, Roxy sprung to life and took off down the trail with frantic eyes. He took off after her as a first instinct, looking in paranoia at the trees with his sniper rifle and ready to shoot it at any second. As it turned out, he didn't have to. He watched as Roxy suddenly collapsed over in a small clearing that had opened up in the trees. Beyond the tropical trees, reflected by the moon's bright shine over the island, was a building perched roughly two-hundred feet away. The squared nature of it and metal silo jutting out told him that it was a barn.

"Are you fucking nuts?" Zane yelled as he finally caught up with her. "we're a few feet away from a Danger Zone! You could've gotten your head blown off!"

When she didn't answer, he was forced to look down at the ground where she was sitting. When he did, he realized why she'd run in the first place. Sprawled out on the leaves was the unconscious body of Mare Ewing (Girl #3). Her ghost of a face was pale and soaked in blood from her mouth. Teeth had ripped through her gums and lips, giving her the appearance of some type of prehistoric creature. Although it was unclear exactly what had happened to her, there were enough clues to tell that something was very wrong. Blood was speckled all over her hands. Not around her ruined mouth, but completely soaking her hands like some kind of meat butcher.

Zane's eyes grew wide. "Oh shit…"

"Wake up", Roxy said harshly as she shook her. "C'mon wake up…"

The girl stirred slightly but didn't move. Whatever had smashed her full-force in the face had seemed to have knocked all of the sense out of her. Her tongue slurred around one of her broken teeth as the actress shook her.

"We have to carry her or something", Roxy said frantically. "We'll make a stretcher! The straps of our backpacks! We'll-

"Wait a second", Zane said. "something's funny here…"

"Funny? What the hell could be funny here?"

"No, "hah-hah" funny. Something just doesn't add up. Look at her hands".

Roxy glared. "What about her hands? They're hands! They're a little dirty but that doesn't mean shit out here. Look at yourself! You're soaked from head to toe in blood! And you didn't give in and play the game!'

"Hey, I'll admit I had a part in killing Chris the moment you admit that Eddie wouldn't have run if you didn't-

"I don't have time for this!" she sighed. "I know her and there's no way she killed. She has problems but her problems wouldn't lead to this".

"But-

"Mare is my friend!" Roxy spat. "and there's no way we're going to leave her here!"

Zane sighed and glanced down at the spiky-haired girl. A known kleptomaniac who probably had more piercings than she did friends, she wasn't necessarily somebody he would trust on a daily basis. In fact, she wasn't someone who he would trust at all. The only experiences he'd ever had with Mare had confused him. All in all, she was just a strange person who he'd avoided because he didn't get her. _That doesn't mean her life doesn't matter though, man. She's not that bad. You've talked to her before…_

"Look", Zane said. "I want to get her out of here as much as you do. But we just don't have the opportunity to take her with us right now. If we get into another fight she'll just be gunned to the ground before we know it. I hate to say it, but right now, she's dead weight. She's better off if we just leave her to wake up…"

"She needs medical attention!" Roxy yelled. "and look at the way she's shivering! She's my friend! There's no way I'm leaving here until-

And that was when they heard the sound of a car honking behind them.

* * *

The scent in the bog was overpowering. As the girl wielding the handsaw walked in, she felt the reek of decaying flesh and blood clogging her nostrils. Practically feeling choked as she trudged down the slope, she surveyed the scene in front of her. From what she could tell, there were bodies. Not just bodies, but corpses that had been completely mutilated beyond recognition. On a normal day back home it would have made her gag, maybe even vomit, but not now. Especially if she didn't want to let it get in the way of her goal. _Slow and steady wins the race….that's what he always said…don't rush yourself...only the good die young, right?_

Lea Passington (Girl #11) had become a hunchback. The bullets that had grazed in a sharp line down her back were agonizing. They hadn't punctured anything vital, but the skin enough was awful. Every step she shook felt like an arrow had sliced up her spine. Walking down the slope and cringing with every step, she surveyed the bodies. Judging by a quick body count, there were three of them. The one with glasses was belly-up and facing the sun. Along with the gunshot wounds around their body, their corpse would probably end up deteriorating soon enough. The second corpse by the tree looked beyond recognition. Whatever algae and bacteria that was in the bog had seemed to have eaten its head alive. The third corpse was easily the worst though. Somebody had smashed its head to a bloody pulp and completely brutalized it. Despite the blood soaked all over it, she could still make out the remains of a varsity jacket. And judging just by that, it wasn't a good person. In fact, it was the very opposite. It was Chris. Loud-mouthed, vulgar Chris who thought he could take whatever he wanted. He was dead.

"_That's the justice in the universe then",_ she thought. _"that's God's sick sense of humor. If he was real I bet everyone would be cracking up…"_

Walking over to the ruined quarterback, Lea noticed a silver, glimmering object beside it that was covered in the boy's blood. Kneeling down and getting a fresh burst of pain threw her back, her heart gave a leap when she saw that it. It was a first-aid kit. It was beaten and dented, but it was a first-aid kit nonetheless. Shaking it next to her hair, she felt a smile grow on her face when she heard the sound of clattering objects inside. _That's good luck. But there's more. There's always more after a massacre. The vultures always leave something behind…._

Sitting up, she scanned the clearing with her sharp eyes. It was clear that someone had survived the battle. After all, if people died, there was obviously a survivor. And in the insanity of the mess, they probably hadn't taken everything. Things had definitely been left behind. .

Sitting up from the body with the ruined head, Lea slowly walked over to the muskeg tree with the boy's bacteria-eaten face. It must have been what digging for gold was like for a murderer. It took some clawing through the dirt and even more clawing through the brain matter coming out of Rory's head, but it wasn't long before she found her second prize. It was a pistol. For some reason it was completely flooded with water, but with the proper repair, she could probably get it working again. Turning the weapon to the side, she grimaced as bog water came flooding out.

The treasure hunt didn't end there. Sitting up from the second body, Lea skipped over to the third like a macabre Easter egg hunt. As it turned out, many things had been left behind. _Ammunition. Half-full water bottles. Spare bread rolls. Everything's coming together…_

In the eyes of others, it was someone getting extremely fortunate in the aftermath of a massacre. And to put it bluntly, it was. But to her, it was the game offering her an entirely new beginning.

* * *

**No Students Eliminated**

* * *

**26 Students Remaining**


	30. Day 2: Hour 28: 26 Students Remaining

Winston Van Buren (Boy #19) was dying. The trees circled around him as he stumbled through the woods, disorienting him in a wave and pulling him closer and closer to the ground. He tried to fight it, but in the end, it was like trying to crawl out of his own coffin. He could pound on the lid all he wanted but it wasn't going to change the fact that he was never going to get back up. The gravedigger would have been pleased.

Ambling along, he felt like he was being repeatedly punched in the gut by an unseen force. The force was relentless, crawling up to his neck and choking the very life out of him. Blood sputtered out of the corner of his mouth as his hands trembled on the slit envelope of his throat. _Not going to be long now…just keep walking…one step…two step…_

_"Just keep walking", _Winston thought. _"that's the best idea you've had in awhile..."_

He knew he was kidding himself. He could admit it now. There was no real point in trying to hide the truth anymore. He was going to die in the damn, cold jungle hundreds of miles from home and nobody was going to care. Demi seemed more like an afterthought now than a real person. She was like the wooden rabbits that the dogs would chase at those old tracks. The dog would chase the rabbit and hope to catch it, but in the end, it would just be forced back to the starting line when he realized his prize was nothing but wishful thinking. The only difference in Winston's case was that he wasn't going to be running in the next race. He would be out for good.

He bowed his head, sniffled, and walked onward. Feeling a metallic clink at his side, he forced himself to look down at the golden ring on his finger. He hadn't paid it much attention throughout the day, especially with the whole concept of death coming into play at every second, but he knew it was justified to take a glance at it now. The ring and its partner had been beyond expensive at the time, but with both Demi and him paying together with weeks of allowances, it had definitely seemed worth it. The owner at the jewelry store had treated them two puppy dogs in love and not really put much effort into the carving the pair of rings. Still, the two sets of initials on them had stood the test of time. _WV and DM. WV and DM. WV and DM…._

Winston gazed away from the ring and shuddered. It was time to get back to reality. One more altercation with anyone would end up getting him bad. Always a pacifist, Winston had probably been the most shocked out of all of the students at the sheer level of disheveling humanity on the island. You didn't beat someone up if they walked toward you bleeding. You helped them. You didn't turn on your partner and cut his throat up. You stood by him. He'd tried his best to hold onto the roots of what he thought life stood for but it all just seemed to fall apart at every second. _What happened to trust? What happened to everyone being a family? Whatever happened to being normal, for Christ's sake! _

He had thought that things were bad when Tristan had beaten him to a bloody pulp. He'd thought things would never get any worse and he'd reached his breaking point. But although it seemed like a complete joke, things _had_ actually gotten worse. He'd been walking past a strange-looking bungalow when he'd heard a dull popping sound ring in the air. What followed was immense pain as a grenade exploded and sent metal shrapnel flying into his leg. Yelping in agony, he'd hopped on one foot out of the sight as quickly as he could. Collapsing onto the ground, he'd inspected the wound carefully. The metal was buried so deep in his thigh he would probably end up needing intense surgery to get it out.

"_Mom and Dad would have paid any day of the week",_ he thought. _"They always were looking out for you. They knew you weren't the brightest bulb around, but they made sure you were happy. You always thought you could have just made it through life stumbling and waiting for people to turn on you, didn't you?"_

He suddenly became aware of a stone pillar towering over the trees. On a normal day he would have recognized it at a lighthouse, but with the quality of his vision rapidly decreasing at every second, he just saw it as a safe haven for the last moments of his life. Swatting branches out of the way, he zigzagged through the dense foliage until he saw the brick wall of the building peeking through the trees. _Now's your time_. Walking over and feeling the ground call for him more than ever, he began walking up the porch. Each step brought a fresh dose of pain into his body, but he tried his best to ignore it. It would all be over soon.

Eying the doorknob, he did his best to raise his hand to turn it. When that didn't work out as well as he hoped, he merely moaned and slid against the wall to the glass porthole that circled around the entire lighthouse. Sliding down against the window and leaving a bloody smear, Winston cringed as the pain surged through his body again. He tried to reach for the doorknob again, but for some reason, he couldn't even stand up now. All he could do was knock his hand feebly on the window. Again. And again. _This is it…_

"Please…" he sobbed. "I...I don't want to die…"

Rolling his head against the glass, he was able to make out the interior of the mighty, stone pillar. The bottom level appeared to be a mix-matched kitchen. He could see peeling wall paper lining along the winding stairwell and a counter winding around the room in a sharp oval with a refrigerator and stove attached. _And lying against the counter was…_

Winston's heart gave a leap. It almost seemed too good to be true. But there was no denying it. It was her. She was hard to make out through the stained glass, but there was no mistaking the bright, ginger hair and short stature. Too dazed to notice that something was terribly wrong with the way she was slouched over, his face contorted into a smile for the first time since Mare abandoned him. If there was any justice in the universe, it was showing its face now. He was going to fulfill his promise after all. Even if it was just for a moment, they were going to be together.

He suddenly felt a newfound strength in his body. Knocking hard on the thick, glass window, Winston let out a guttural cry.

"DEMI, LET ME INSIDE!"

* * *

It was the kind of story told once in a millennium. It was one of the stories that everybody said happened but there was no solid proof. She'd heard urban lores of people living with bullets in their bellies and pinned down by semi-trucks. Hell, there'd even been that chicken that had gotten decapitated and somehow lived a whole week due to its jugular vein being missed by the axe. But this almost seemed like a joke. The blood. The pain. There just didn't seem to be any logic behind it. _It's everywhere now…it's everywhere…why the hell aren't I dead?_

And so she was alive. Nothing more than a frail skeleton slumped up against the lighthouse counter, Demi Marigold (Girl #7) wished for nothing more than death. Thirteen hours had taken its toll on her in a number of ways. Thirteen hours of agony. Thirteen hours of growing insanity. And more than anything, fifteen hours to think. Feeling as light as a pillow, she let her head fall over limply to look down at her stomach. The blue coils of her intestines were still pumping like a drum beat. Maybe that was part of the reason that she was alive. The gunshots she'd inflicted upon herself hadn't really punctured any major organ open, but then again, she wasn't an anatomist and the sight in front of her really didn't look that pretty. _Looks like you're a medical miracle, Dem. One for the books…_

The girl smiled at the thought and coughed up blood. It really was a miracle that she hadn't gone insane. Or at least she thought she hadn't. There were definitely times when she'd come close. The hallucinations in the last fifteen hours had been disturbing to say the least. In one, all of the counters and chairs in the lighthouse seemed to come to life and laugh at her. In another, the moonlight streaming through the window looked like a hand out to snatch her away. But, trying as hard as she could against all odds, she'd maintained her sanity by simply refusing to die. She knew it was what she should have been doing, and she knew it was really what she wanted, but she just couldn't. There were so many people that her death would let down. Her parents. Her sister. And just as important as them, Winston. He was out there. He may have been in even worse shape than her, but he was out there.

"_He wasn't on the announcements though", _she thought. _"Six people died since you gunned yourself down…."_

That was the part that really frightened her. Even though she was down for the rest of the game and only a passing observer, the slaughter had continued. Disposing all of their morals, people had killed each other. A short ginger girl with rectangular glasses, Demi had always thought of it as her duty in life to question human nature. Violence was glorified in the world at every second, and it helped to know what made people tick. And In the end, it all boiled down to the fact that people were naturally good. At least that was what she and Winston had brainwashed themselves into believing. Admittedly a coward and a pacifist, Demi always wanted to be as far away from bloodshed as possible. Even when people committed terrible acts in the street every day, she maintained her faith with God that there was still purity within them to go out and make a difference. _People are good. Everyone's good. The crazy world just makes them do bad things…_

Glancing down at her foot, Demi realized that it was shaking involuntarily. She tried to stop it, but some reason, her muscles weren't working anymore. Trying not to completely break down at the sight of the WV and DM ring on her finger, she flexed her finger and grinned. _At least the nerves in my hand are still working_. The rest wasn't a good sight though.. Every single working function in her body seemed to be shutting down. She pictured herself like a flower wilting in the dark. Soon, all of the petals would be gone and she'd be left a weed. Worse than that, she'd be dead. There had to be a way to-

THUD!

There was a knock on the lighthouse window. The moment she looked toward it, another one followed. Somebody was banging on the window. Through her awful vision, it was only possible to discern a blurred outline of a figure. It was slumped against the window in an awkward position, almost like a spider trying to slip through a crack that it just couldn't manage.

"DEMI! IT'S WINSTON! LET ME IN!"

"Oh no…" she croaked.

It was him. Jude had come back to finish the job after all. It would be just like a sociopath like him to return and bathe in the glory of claiming a new victim. Part of her felt a sense of hopelessness and seemed all too eager to end the pain of the last twelve hours in an instant. But then there was the growing realization that it went against everything she had thought about in her lighthouse of nirvana. She couldn't die. The idea of her family and friends having to gather at a funeral for her was an inhuman and distant thought. She had to live. To keep the world afloat, she just couldn't die. _I'm good. We're all good. You're doing this for peace…_

The bloody girl shuddered and reached a weak hand for the Uzi.

* * *

There was a dull popping sound that confused the boy for a second. This was ended rather abruptly though when the window exploded like a massive crystal ball. Winston instantly felt like thousands of fiery pellets had entered his body as the glass sliced as angles he didn't even know possible. The bullets buried themselves into his belly, spitting out his intestines across the floor in a gory mess and catapulting him through the ruined window frame of the lighthouse. _And there she is…_

Hung over backwards in the mess of glass and blood, Winston could clearly see his girlfriend's skeletal body slumped against the counter with the Uzi cradled in her trembling arms. She was glancing around wildly with her squinted eyes, desperately trying to piece together what had happened. He knew part of him should have been angry at the sight, but in the end, it all just seemed like it was meant to happen anyway. He'd question their philosophies on life for awhile, but feeling the blood bubble out of his stomach, he knew they were true. People were people. Their actions couldn't be justified. Things like the game were minor inconviences. The love of humans couldn't be broken by something as trivial as death.

Slowly not caring much about anything anymore as he lay dying on the ground, Winston saw what he had to do. Pulling the ring off his finger with all of his might, he let his hand rest on the ground. Flicking out his bulbous finger, he watched as it rolled across the rickety, wooden floorboard and over to Demi. The hissing sound it made as it rolled was almost demonic.

"Do you see this?" he spit through the blood. "Do you see what I did for us?"

And with that, he fell over in the frame of the ruined window dead. _Mission accomplished…_

* * *

The ring rolled to her side with a metallic clink that sounded like it was fit for nightmares. It didn't even take a second of thought for her to realize what she'd just done. _The ring on her finger. Its partner on the floor near her leg. The corpse on the floor…_

"NO!" Demi screamed. "WINSTON!"

The dead boy in the far corner didn't move. He didn't even respond. She knew this should have made her feel stupid, but it didn't. There was no word to describe how she felt after causing the death of the one person in the world that had motivated her to keep herself alive in the lighthouse. Things could have gone out peacefully. They could have lain together by the cupboard side-by-side, waiting patiently until a turn of events resulted in them dying together. A collar detonation. A murderer coming in. Anything. She just didn't want to go out alone. She knew it was common sense that neither of them wanted to die, but at least they would have gone out together….

"Please get up…." Demi whispered. "C'mon Moose….please get up…"

He didn't. The blue snakes of his intestines spit out even more blood on the floor. It was the game's fault. Winston hadn't done anything wrong. A gentle giant who didn't even like stepping on bugs, all he'd done was try to live life to the fullest. He was probably lining up at Heaven's gates right then with that big grin on his face. He was reaching out to her, beckoning him to joiner her. And she wanted to. She wanted nothing more than to throw herself over her fallen friend and go out with him. But it was too late to go out with him like she'd planned. Demi may have had poor eyesight, but her hearing was perfect. The tone in his voice upon death had been one of complete hopelessness where he had nothing left to live for. If they saw each other on the other side, what would be the first thing they would say?

"_Sunsets…"_ Demi thought wildly. _"Bike races…restaurants…you never went big to impress me like all the other guys at school did with their girls, did you? We were happy with what we had. We may not have been able to afford the tickets to a concert or two, but we didn't need things like to keep us going. We had each oth-_

A knock on the door suddenly ended her monologue of guilt. The doorknob jingled noisily as she Demi the hair on the back of her neck stand up.

"Hello?" a voice called from outside. "Is anyone there?"

She couldn't tell who the voice was nor did she care. She knew what had to be done. She may not have been able to die with her friend, but with luck, she would be following him to those pearly gates in a second. Everything suddenly made sense. _Human nature. The good people. The betrayal. Only a game like this can bring that out…_

There were good people in the world. Lots of them. It was hard to see sometimes, but they were definitely there. She found herself wondering she was one of them as she looked at Winston's ruined belly, but in the end, it all seemed like lost thinking. After half a day of complete hell, she was finally going home…

Demi gripped the Uzi and dragged it over her ruined belly. She cringed as she passed over one of the bullets imbedded under her skin, but it was something that no longer mattered. She brought the weapon up to her mouth and closed her eyes. The last thing she saw was the jangling doorknob. Whoever was behind the door seemed to be getting closer to forcing it open.

"Hello?" the voice said again. "Is anyone there? Please let me inside!"

"Please God", Demi whispered. "let my luck be in…"

_KA-THUD!_

* * *

The moment J.C Brooke (Girl #1) forced open the door of the lighthouse, she instantly regretted it. She peeked through the doorway just in time to watch Demi's head vanish in a hammersmash of blood and brains that sent skull fragments flying in every direction. For a second she thought the girl locked eyes with her before her death, but she then realized that her eyes were closed. The Uzi's rapid bullets ricocheted in every direction as flaming pieces of metal flew up toward the domed ceiling. A macabre rainstorm of gunsmoke was happening inside the lighthouse. Looking around as her eyes grew wide, the sight was far too grotesque to take in. Everything was red. Red hand-prints streaking across the wall. Red puddles all over the floor. Red glass covering the ground near the window. _Fuck…_

J.C couldn't hold it in. Feeling a horrible wrenching situation in her throat, she coughed mightily and sent food rations splattering onto the bloody floor. Part of her just wanted to flee and make a run for it like she usually did in life, but this situation was so bad that she could only stare in horror. Part of her wanted to know exactly what the hell had happened, but the other part was so full of grim fascination with all of the horrors she had seen that she didn't want to know.

She stepped out slowly through the bloodshed and carefully over Winston's corpse. She could see his ruined face reflected in the thousands of pieces of glass on the floor. One eye seemed to be pierced by one shard and was running down his face. Looking away and shuddering, she hugged herself as she walked around the circular room to Demi's body. What remained of her was slumped against the counter with sawdust from the Uzi's bullets still clouding around where her head should have been. It seemed like the worst possible thing she could have done, but completely defenseless, it only seemed right. J.C bent down and carefully wrenched the Uzi from the dead girl's arms.

"_Demi Marigold",_ she thought. _"Bookworm on the debate team. You and the others pushed her around a little. Nice girl…"_

Noticing something glistening by her finger, J.C raised an eyebrow and knelt down even farther. The ring was gold and stained with blood and brains. Still, she could make out the two sets of initials that had been carved into it. _WV and DM. _Gazing over at her boyfriend's remains, she spotted the same ring on his index finger. ..

J.C sighed. The girl that her classmates remembered would have just spit on the bodies and walked out. Or at least that was what they thought she would have done. But even the most heartless person in the world would know that was immoral. These were lovers. And if there was one thing that J.C believed in, it was true love.

Pulling the ring off Demi's finger with difficulty, the girlfriend of the class delinquent then crawled over silently to the body of her boyfriend. Careful to avoid the broken glass, she struggled to rip the ring off his finger as well. Grimacing at the fact that she needed to break a bone to do it, she finally had two golden rings in her hand. And with that, she reached up and placed them on the counter together. The early sunrise glistened in through the ruined window and shone on them. _Now you're together. Who's the heartless bitch now?_

She knew she had a few options. Change seemed like the best one. Still, she couldn't quite manage to figure that one out yet. She made a vow to do it in due time. Besides that, the only thing left to do was run. _You're born to run, right girl?_

J.C tightened her grip on her Uzi and ran out the doorway. Just one more hour would be a hell of an accomplishment.

* * *

**Eliminated**

**(Boy #19) Van Buren, Winston**

**(Girl #7) Marigold, Demi**

* * *

**24 Students Remaining**


	31. Day 2: Hour 29: 24 Students Remaining

Peter Juntz (Boy #9) knew the world was on his shoulders now. He didn't like it, but it was an inconvenient truth that was becoming more and more apparent at every second. If he hadn't run out of cigarettes, he would have popped one into his mouth into a second; anything so his thoughts could scatter and he could think peacefully. But it was going to happen. There was no room for mellow thinking now. His escape plan in the last few hours had gone from a small-scale attempt at making a difference to a full-blown revolution. _They're all relying on you now. And if you fuck up it's a let-down for all of them…_

Peter couldn't help but shudder. It didn't have to be a violent revolution, but the way things were going , it was just on a road to a complete and utter destruction. They'd rallied people together. It was a close call that had almost gotten them killed, but they'd actually managed to rally people together for a common goal of salvation. In total now, between picking people up after their rendezvous call and gathering them together, there were ten of them. _Peter, Logan, Tristan, Travis, Mitch, Luke, Terry, Zane, Roxy and Mare._ Ten people awaiting a suicide mission that would turn them into nine and also let them leave the island for good. Hell, things had even looked up a little. They'd even found a half-decent hiding spot to relocate to.

But none of this mattered. It had been easy to keep his head above water when he was with the twins. But this…this was just becoming too much to handle. He pictured hundreds of eyes, all locked on him and awaiting their next move. The move could lead to salvation, but on the other hand, there were thousands of other grim outcomes ping-ponging around in his head. They were sickening thoughts. He would have to tolerate though.

"_This is really happening…"_ he thought. _"it's all real….and there's no room for messing anything up…."_

* * *

The world was a haze. She felt the fog becoming more and more sweltering at every second, choking the very life out of her as she thrashed about on the cot. Every so often there was a wave of heat that would travel by and make her entire body shudder like she was locked in a sauna. She wanted nothing more than to sit up, force herself out of the damn room, and never come back. But she couldn't. Her body just wouldn't let her get up…

"Go wet another cloth in the kitchen", a voice said. "She's burning up…"

The girl grimaced. She struggled to squint and see her way through the fog, but it was a losing battle. She felt like a casualty in war that had been left to die in the battlefield. She could almost picture everyone miles away, questioning if coming back for her was a good idea. And it wasn't. She knew for a fact that something was very wrong…

"_Bad dreams",_ Mare thought numbly. _"That's all it is…."_

There was mild movement and noise around her. A sharp pain near her leg followed with the sensation that she was being poked with fire tongs. She shifted uncomfortably and only caused more muttering around her. There were people around here. Or at least a person. And the cot suddenly seemed more like an operating table then a place to catch a nap.

Thoughts flew around in her mind as the pain continued in her leg. She could see memories, both good and bad. _Stealing cigarettes from the grocery store down the street….school play...hell of a road trip…car crash….Battle Royale….cutting Winston's throat….making a run for it…what the hell happened next?_

The thoughts were so distant that they seemed like they belonged to another girl rather than her. And the girl herself belonged to a different world. They called things like that an out-of-body experience. Then again, the people that did that were usually a little messed up in the head with their crystal balls and tarot cards. _The world's fucked up, ain't it?_

"I got the cloth", a second voice said.

"Thanks", said the first. "I think she's got septicemia. A mild case of it, but it's still septicemia".

"Sucks for her", said the other one. "Anyway, finish up with her soon and get outside. We want to drill everyone in on what's going down".

"Roger".

She cringed as she felt a wet cloth being pressed against her face and dabbing away sweat. It was the slightest pressure possible, but somehow, it helped her regain her consciousness. Opening her eyes like camera pinholes, Mare Ewing (Girl #3) took in a shrill gasp of air and looked around the room. Whoever had been pressing the cloth against her face yelped and jumped backyards, but from her position, Mare felt she wasn't inclined to care very much. Now that she had a good look at the room, she was able to get a sense of her surroundings. The room had the look of a log cabin with the fresh smell of pine wood everywhere. There was a chest of drawers at the bedside with a dated television at the foot of the bed. _And standing in front of her was…_

Mare winced. "Logan?"

It was definitely her. There was no mistaking that massive frame. Logan Spruce (Girl #18) had been dabbing her with the wet cloth and tending to her wounds. Upon her awakening, the fat girl had sprung backwards in fear. She was holding the wet dishrag loosely at her side. In her other hand she was clutching her chest.

"Well, at least you're up", Logan sighed. "Damn it Mare, you almost gave me a heart attack! I didn't think you would wake up so soon!"

"Sorry", Mare said. She looked around again. "Where…where the hell am I?"

"That big pink mansion by the shore", Logan replied. "You must have seen it. It sticks out like a sore thumb".

"The one with Enrique lying in the backyard?"

"That's the one", Logan answered with a weak smile. "We thought it would be a good place to hide out. Even if sticks out, anyone who storms into a building this big has to be an idiot".

"Who, slow down girl" Mare cut in. "Who's _we_?'

"There's you and me obviously", Logan said. "And then there's Peter. We made a rendezvous call a few hours back and met up Mitch, Terry, and Luke. It's a good thing too. We're going to need as many people as possible if we all want to get out of here. An escape isn't going to have much of an impact if only a few people get out. Anyway, I'm glad we ran into them. They helped us out of a pretty tight spot. After that we were passing through the bog and about a heartbeat away from running you and the others over when we picked you up".

Mare's head was amidst with questions. For a second she wanted to scream at the fat girl at the top of her lungs. It wouldn't have been hard too. They had something of a history with each other. During a holiday fundraiser at school, Mare had been paid fifty bucks to steal the three buckets of cookie dough that Logan had bought and gotten caught in the act. This all seemed to be forgotten though. Instead of a skeptical and worried expression like Mare expected any sensible person to have, Logan was just smiling at her. _And she actually believes in this escape thing she's telling you._ This only made her want to yell even more. But a full-blown migraine then settled in and caused her to moan and lay back on the cot. Mare sighed as she brought her hands up and rubbed her temples.

"I feel like I just got hit by a truck", Mare groaned.

"Figures", Logan said brightly. "You were pretty banged up when we found you. I managed to get the bullet out of your leg though. You don't know how lucky you are. If the main vein had gotten shot, you would have bled to death on the spot. Thank God it only grazed under the skin. Infection's probably ten times worse now though…."

"What are you talking about?"

"My mom's a nurse", Logan replied. "I learn about stuff like this all the tim-

"That's not what I meant. What you said before. What do you mean I was with people? As far as I know, I walked out of the barn and after that, everything just went to black like the world swallowed me up. And then I woke up here. And everything you're dumping on me makes me feel like I'm going fucking nuts".

"Don't worry", Logan said gently. "You're probably still a hell of a lot better than some of the other people out there. We found you near the bog with Zane and Roxy. I think they must have found you. They were arguing. Probably about taking you with them or something. Anyway, it took some persuading, but we loaded you all into the car. We circled around the island a little bit, picked up the twins, and then we settled on the manor here. I think this is just a pit stop though. The car was pretty low on gas and we all needed to rest…"

"Roxy's here?' Mare asked. "And the twins too?"

"There's ten of us", Logan said. "Peter, Tristan, Travis, Mitch, Terry, Luke, Roxy, Zane, me…" She paused for a second. "And well…then there's you if you're up for this…"

Mare opened her mouth to say something but was cut off when Logan dabbed the sweaty cloth on her face again. As she watched the fat girl pull the rag away, she came to the realization that it was caked in dried blood. Somebody had beaten her into a nearly catatonic state and left her to die. And if she'd been knocked out that long…

"I was knocked out for almost ten hours", Mare said. "I missed two announcements. Who died?'

"When did you get knocked out?" Logan asked. "Around six last night?"

"Must have been".

"Then there was a total of six since then", she replied. "Or at least six that we know about. June, Leana, Perry, Meyerhold, Victoria and Rory. There's another announcement coming in about an hour so there's probably going to be more…"

"What about Winston?' Mare asked. "Was he on the list?"

Logan gave her a funny look, and almost instantly, Mare regretted what she had just said. Her eyes traveled uneasily to the machete hanging at Logan's side. If she suspected her a murderer, it would have been a simple task to thrust the blade into her heart. Mare could admittedly say she wasn't an easy person to trust. Her reputation as a thief and a thug hadn't exactly brightened her social circle. And tired and beaten the way she was, she was in no condition for fighting. After her emotional meltdown in the barn, having to hurt someone again was the last thing she wanted. _Then again this is Logan Spruce. She's a nice girl. Nobody knows her that well, but she's probably a nice girl…_

"No", Logan answered finally. "He wasn't. Why?"

"Long story", Mare sighed. "I'd fill you in once I get my thoughts together".

"That's okay", Logan said. She was still staring. "You're in good pretty good shape now anyway. Just rest a little bit and you'll be fine. Everybody's out in the foyer so you can come in when you're-

"No", Mare cut in. "No, I'm leaving…"

Her words were out before Logan even had a chance to finish. She half-expected to see a hurt look in the fat girl's eyes. Instead she saw only confusion. She took in a deep breath before she continued speaking.

"Look", Mare sighed. "I appreciate what you're trying to do here. You definitely have your heart in the right place anyway. But you're trying to steer a boat that doesn't have a wheel. This is all just going to sink and fall apart. I'm not trying to put you down or anything, because really, I want to get out of this just as much as everyone else, but we all know only one person is living out here. And I'm just doing what I can to survive…."

Logan smiled gently and folded the cloth in her hands. Rolling it up, she stuffed it into her pocket beside her machete. The idea of her stabbing her with it still hadn't gone away for some reason…

"Well, suit yourself!" she said brightly. "It's your choice. Just don't do anything that's going to get you hurt. And you're welcome here anytime. We're blowing this island sky high and going home! Or at least as close to home as we can go now".

Still smiling her jovial smile, Logan sat up from her side and walked toward the door. As her massive frame vanished through, Mare couldn't help but feel a growing sense of dread inside her. She was so full of hope. There was no telling what could happen with feelings like that. There was the small chance they could lead to salvation, but most likely, they would fall apart on her. Shaking a lock of green hair out of her eyes, Mare sighed and lay back on the cot._ Some mess you've thrown yourself into…_

* * *

Mitch Kelley (Boy #10) couldn't believe his good luck. Normally far from the most optimistic person in the world, it felt like the world had practically been flipped upside-down. In school, he tended to be dismissive of everyone's kindness for the simple fact that he was too frightened to make many friends. He knew it wouldn't have been that hard if he really tried. He was proud of his sense of humor, even if it was unbelievably dark at times, and despite his stubbornness in trusting everyone else, he had a good heart. But all of that was put to waste. There were too many opportunities for the people you loved to just drift away. They were there one minute, and the next, they turned their back on you for no other reason than them feeling like it. It was best to just drift under the radar. _You always have to be uptight about that stuff. Everyone being out to get you. Damn it, can't you just fucking calm down? That's what Adam always said when you started ranting about this kind of shit…_

The boy sighed as he reclined back in one of the manor's armchairs. He gazed around at the others assembled there, all with varying looks of hesitance on their faces. The last few hours had been eventful to say the least. Trudging up through the forest around midnight in a journey that had amazingly not gotten them killed, they'd run into the bizarre sight of a cross-dresser and a three-hundred pound girl crammed together in a puny AMC Gremlin. After a quick exchange of survival stories, they'd managed to navigate their way out of the woods together with Terry's map. This had really been a pain in the ass, mainly because the car could hardly go a foot without denting itself against a tree. But still, they'd persevered and forced their way out of the woods through a combination of cutting branches with a machete and using the car's wheels to dig the tree's roots out of the mud.

It wasn't long before the car became even more crowded. Cruising around the bog, they'd been met with the sight of Zane and Roxy dragging Mare's body along with them. After a short exchange where they realized there was a strength in numbers, the car had become a crowded sauna with six people piled into the backseat. _AMC Gremlins. Icon of the 70'S. Riding in a crowded backseat of those things will give you worse headaches than a hangover. Remember to smash every one left in existence if you ever get out of this…._

With the map acting as their guide, they'd traveled back to the border of the school to pick up the twins. All of them had been surprised to see Tristan's shirt soaked in blood and Travis looking like he was about to have a nervous breakdown. Neither of them had spoken as they climbed into the car that was now beyond its capacity and feeling like a smoldering oven. Eventually, it had gotten so bad that they'd had to stop the car and stuff Mare's semi-conscious body into the trunk for more room. Still, things had been going good. It had just been their luck for another blow to come along.

They'd finally come to the awful realization that the car was low on gas. Not wanting to kill off their only form of transportation, they'd been forced to find a place to crash until they thought of a battle plan. _And here we are. The manor…_

Mitch gazed around the room. It was clear that whoever had owned the home had been a millionaire. Maybe even a multi-millionaire. The tiled flooring of the foyer was shimmering gold and the wallpaper was paved with extravagant designs. The whole thing looked more like a hotel lobby than a house. A spiraling staircase sloped out in the center of the room with the banister looking like it had just been polished. Sitting on the banister and staring at the ground was Zane Barrens (Boy #1). Covered from head to toe in gore, holding a sniper rifle, and looking like an apocalypse survivor, Mitch had been more than skeptical about his story about a massacre he'd gotten himself wrapped into. In fact, if it was up to him, he wouldn't have even let Zane step a foot in the car out of plain fear of him being a murderer. Then again, that was probably because of the relationship the two of them had. It was common knowledge to everyone in school that Zane just didn't like him. In fact, he _hated_ him and had been determined to make every waking moment of his high school career a living hell. He wasn't sure why either. Although Zane treated it like a lifelong grudge that had gone on for centuries, Mitch clearly remembered that it hadn't been. In fact, up until the start of freshman year, they'd been on good terms with each other. Something just happened. _And now you're on an escape mission with him._ _Funny how things turn out. What the hell did you do anyway?_

Beside Zane, he saw Roxy Patterson (Girl #12) sitting against the stair's railing and bandaging her wrist with a piece of fabric she'd ripped from her shirt. The game had seemed to have been the hardest on her. At every small noise, she would jump and look around wildly. Sitting on the other side of the room from her, Terry Klingerman (Girl #6) and Luke Graystone (Boy #5) were sitting on the floor engaged in a heated game of blackjack with the deck of playing cards they'd found in one of the drawers. The atmosphere of the game was tense to say the least, and neither of them were talking. For awhile Mitch had considered telling the others Luke's secret, but in the end, it didn't really seem to have much of a point. All it would lead to was all of them slaughtering somebody instead of getting anywhere near escaping. Both Travis Igolovosky (Boy #7) and Tristan Igolovosky (Boy #8) sat against the wall near the card game. Although Travis was looking relatively interested in joining in, his brother just stared into space like he'd just committed a murder. And judging by the dried blood that covered the front of his shirt, he might as well have.

"How are things out here?'

Slightly startled, Mitch craned his neck to see Logan Spruce (Girl #18) walking out of the door behind the armchair. Because of her optimism for the escape and partnership she'd maintained with Peter, she'd garnered a motherly role among the group. Mitch wasn't at all troubled as she sat down against the wall beside him. He couldn't help but feel bad as she winced with her massive body collapsing to the ground. It must have been a daily ordeal for her.

"No one's talking", Mitch said. "We're scared. You can't really blame us…"

"I don't", Logan said. "I'm scared too. I'm just trying to keep the mood up around here until something good happens".

"And how do you know that's even going to work out?"

Logan stared. "What do you mean?"

"How do you know this whole thing won't just crash and burn? All of my faith is in this too, but we're basically putting our lives into the hands of somebody who says his death will get us out of here. I mean, don't you find that a little weird?"

"I do", Logan said. "But I trust Peter. He has his heart set on getting everyone out of here. People like Mare say they want to go out on their own just because they're scared of trust".

"I guess" Mitch replied. "Speaking of Mare, how is she?'

"Good enough", Logan said. "Can't says she's thrilled about the whole escape thing though. I think she'll leave us all if she has the chance. But I don't think she wants to do any harm …."

"You can't say her idea is a bad one though. I mean, if Peter's really planning on uniting us all to getting out of here and living the rest of our lives together, he has a lot of work to do. Look around. Everyone's life is different here and until now, there's been no crossing paths. We've stayed on familiar territory. The jocks, the nerds, the outcasts, the criminals".

"Those walls can come down", Logan said. "We aren't the Breakfast Club but I think we'll be willing to get together if it means survival".

"Yeah, but-

"Attention!"

Everyone gathered in the mansion's foyer were startled as Peter's loud voice boomed down from the staircase. Standing roughly ten feet above them with his hands on the railing, it was very clear that he wasn't the kind of person that normally made a speech. He looked beyond worried and almost frightened that he'd actually gathered that many people in front of him. Still, he was doing his best to be a leader.

"We have to go over a few things", Peter said. "I just want to get everyone on the same page".

With varying levels of hesitance, the eight assembled in the foyer all crowded toward the center of the tiled floor. Some looked downright frightened, some looked indifferent, and some looked annoyed that they were the ones being lectured too instead of the other way around.

Clearing his throat, Peter forced a smile at all of them. Very few of them actually returned to it and he found his smile faltering to an awkward grimace. It was obvious that they had been waiting for him to say something for awhile. And he had to. After all, what other choice did he have?

"Well", Peter said. "Before we do anything, I think it's important to say that I messed up big time. An entire day's passed and we could have gotten everyone together a lot sooner. I was so wrapped up in everything that I didn't even think that people were dying out there and we could have all done something about it sooner. Now almost half of our friends are dead. And for that, I'm sorry…."

A grim silence followed. He could hear somebody whispering. Knowing there wasn't any backing down, he continued.

"But now it's time to get down to business. Things are going to get serious around here and we need everyone working together. The bottom line is that we're getting out of here".

"You keep saying that", Zane Barrens (Boy #1) cut in. "But it doesn't mean anything unless you have a plan behind it. What's actually happening?"

Peter grinned. "We're blowing up the school".

There was scattered muttering in the crowd that quickly rose into a near commotion. Now that he had people actually talking, Peter couldn't help but feel a little better. The words flowed out much easier now.

"The twins and I have been working on a plan all morning. They say they detonate the collars by sending radio signals that blow them up. There's a trick to that. If you get a shitload of metal and wrap it around the collars and make sure there's no gaps, the signals aren't going to go through. To interfere with them even more, we've been making a walkway of dirt that leads straight into the school. It's above ten feet high, so combined with the metal, the chances of the radio waves passing through are almost non-existent. This leads to what's really going on. We found two tubs of chlorine in the equipment shed by the school and a few shovels. It's been hard, but we've dug a pit and filled it with chlorine. It's not done yet, but if we work hard, we can be done by the end of the day. After that, it's history. I tie a rope that leads into the chlorine pit, rig myself with explosives, make sure the signals won't go to my collar, walk down the dirt mound to the school…and…well….

"We light a match", Tristan finished. His voice was grim.

The commotion was even louder this time. People were talking frantically, raising eyebrows, and looking like there was no hope in hell of actually pulling off what Peter had said. It only gave him more of a reason to keep talking. Before he could though, he was cut off by another voice.

"Why do you have to die?" Terry asked quietly. "I mean, I'm sorry, but there has to be an easier way to do this…"

"If you can think of a better way", Peter continued. "I'd be glad to hear it". The silence afterward was deafening. Nobody seemed to have any other resort. "Anyway, the computers are going to be torched and the whole system monitoring the game is going to crash. The government's going to be going crazy and resorting to back-ups, and in that time, we have to take off the collars and get the show on the road. We make our way out to sea and start a new life in the nearest place we can find". He paused. 'And, well, that's my plan. We'll have to get out and gather some more people too. We need as much people out of here as possible…"

"Nice plan", Luke said. "Real nice. But there's a problem. If someone gets out of a Battle Royale, they're not going to take kindly to them. We'll probably be the most wanted people in America and they'll be a whole army of people after us. Everything from the navy to southern hicks with shotguns who want to show how much they care about America. And that's not even the biggest flaw in it. How the hell are we supposed to get everyone out to sea? Not everyone here can swim to Mexico…."

This, again, got a lot of people talking. Peter couldn't help but feel his stomach rise. This was the one part of the plan that he really hadn't worked out. It was an obvious question that he knew was going to come up, but still, he had no real answer to it.

To his surprise, he wasn't the one with the answer to his problem. To everyone's shock, it came from the star actress of the Spanish Rivers High School drama club.

"The cruise ship", Roxy Patterson (Girl #12) said suddenly. "The cruise ship!"

Everyone turned to face the girl in the middle of the crowd. Visibly shaken up by whatever she'd seen throughout the day, Roxy hadn't spoken much since they'd entered the manor. Now it looked like a bulb had just lit up in her head.

"The cruise ship with all of the bidders on it", Roxy said quickly. "I saw it this morning. I just didn't think about it until now. They're really horrible people. All they care about are seeing tits and blood. But if we blow up the school and get the collars off, we could probably stowaway on the ship when it goes back to the mainland. All of them are too busy drinking and trying to get a view of the island to care. And if we do it when it's dark, chances are they're not even going to see us. We'd have to do it tonight. And we have to make sure we know where we're heading".

"You're okay with Mexico?" Peter asked.

"That's our best bet, but I think Canada would work too. I think we're near the Gulf so it won't be that long of a ride if we head for Mexico. We still have to work on how we're going to get across the ocean but once the collars are gone we'll just-

"But we can't take all of those people", Logan said. "There's hundreds of them just on that deck alone!"

"We won't take them on", Roxy continued. "No point in taking on a battle that we're going to lose. We'll just hide in the hull. Then we'll ride the ship back into the states and sneak off. We can't stay there for long though. There's probably going to be a huge reward on all of our bodies and they'll want us all dead or alive. But all we have to do is hop the border and we're in the home stretch".

There was a murmur of appreciation for her plan. What had once been hesitant faces soon blossomed into hopeful ones. Having moments ago felt like his plan had been shut down, Peter too found himself smiling. _The whole thing's fluent now. Nothing can go wrong. You did it! We did it! This thing is really coming together!_

"So", Peter said. "Who's in?"

For a second an awkward tension filled the room. Nobody seemed to want to be the first to pledge their loyalty to a suicide mission. Then, with a small sigh followed by a smile, Tristan spoke.

"I've been in this from the very beginning", he said. "And there's no way I'm backing out now".

"I'm in too", Logan said. "We're all in this together…"

"Same here", Roxy said. "You can count me in".

One by one, the other members of the escape crew spoke out and approved the revolution. Although many of them were clearly frightened, there was now a noticeable level of hope in the room. In the end, only two remained. Luke stared blankly at the ground with a terrified look on his face while Zane didn't appear to be looking anywhere. Neither had said anything.

"Luke?" Terry asked. "Are you in?"

"No, I'm not", Luke said. "My heart may be in on this but my head's saying differently. But I guess I'm coming along for the ride whether I like it or not…"

"So that's a yes?"

"Yeah", he said. "Yeah, that's a yes…"

It was almost entirely smiles in the room now. Probably the most smiles that the Battle Royale had ever seen. All that remained was one…

"Zane?" Peter asked.

"Things have a way of falling apart", Zane said. "And I would know. But I want to stick it to the fuckers up at the capitol just as much as the rest of you. Maybe even more. I've seen a lot in the last few hours and I can say for sure now that I'm not backing down without a fight. This game's taken a lot from me. Almost all of my friends are dead. And I'm not leaving until I get my revenge…" He grinned. "So I'm in…"

Smiling one of his first smiles since the game began, Peter jabbed a fist into the air as he stood on the staircase. With most of the hesitance leaving them, the revolutionaries in the foyer beneath him followed suit as eight fists rose above their heads. For just a moment, they were no longer in a death game and the island was a world away from them. Having grown up in a country with rights vanishing all around them, it was time to finally make a difference; it was time to to make a step toward change.

And so things had finally been set into motion.

* * *

**No Students Eliminated**

* * *

**24 Students Remaining**


	32. Day 2: Hour 30: 24 Students Remaining

Love is a complicated thing. Especially in the high school scene, it can be interpreted in hundreds of different ways. Some see it as nothing more than a good screw to be reminisced with a hangover the next morning. Others see it as a line of weekly romances in a long journey to find the perfect somebody. And others just see it as a shallow joke that shouldn't be taken seriously. Most people don't say their true feelings about love because they're afraid of sounding stupid.

Erin Thompson (Girl #19) knew a lot about love. In fact, she practically lived off it. She'd been cursed with the reputation of the class whore shortly upon her arrival in high school. It wasn't a reputation she wanted, but unfortunately, it was just how things had worked out for her. The student body always felt the need to label people. And seeing Erin's tendency to end up in the closet with guys at every party she went to, they had labeled her a whore. _They never even look under the surface. They don't care about you as a person. All those bitches care about is you going in the corner and screwing like a rabbit. Ah well. Like any of that matters now…_

Erin ran through the jungle with the early rays of the sun beating down on the back of her neck. Her heart felt like it was about to pound out of her chest, but still, she kept running. Although she'd lost track of time a long time ago, she guessed she'd been running on and off for about eight hours. Eight hours of running through the sweltering jungle alone. It should have been hell for her, but luckily, years on the cheerleading squad had given her strong legs that were too stubborn to give out.

If it made sense, Erin was lucky to be unlucky. Ever since birth she had the habit of coming near death's doors but always walking away unscathed. As an infant she had been diagnosed with breathing problems that had nearly killed her. Even as a young woman she still had snap shots in her mind of sitting in a crib and gagging her lungs out. It had gotten so bad that she was pretty sure her parents had already started planning her funeral the very night she was born. But, shocking everyone, she'd pulled through and lived to tell the tale. And then there was that time she'd been hit by hr uncle's truck at the family reunion. If that same uncle hadn't sped her to the hospital, she probably would have been rotting in a grave instead of being destined to rot on an island. And so like it or not, Erin had unwillingly lived the life of a daredevil with death a growing possibility at every moment.

_And then there was Mom….._

She sighed. That was the worst part. It wasn't that Erin's mother was a bad person. She was just overprotective after all of the misadventures her daughter had gotten into. Even when she snuck out at night to a party, she had to endure a speech when she got home about how she, "could have gotten herself killed!" Everything in her mother's eyes was dangerous. The idea that her daughter was off screwing at parties on Fridays didn't make the countless scenarios in her head any better either. It wasn't like it was her choice to screw either. At those parties, everybody blended into a single entity. A gathering of the popular. The school's elite. There was no way you could defy what they told you to do. If Adrienne wandered up to her drunk and whispered about that cute guy in the corner, she'd have no choice but to end up in a closet with him by the end of the night. The whole atmosphere was so awful. The sound of music booming outside. The feeling of her tongue slipping into his mouth. The cheap smell of liquor on the boy's breath. It was her life. And it sucked. Things were so repetitive...

And that was the problem with the popular crowd. It wasn't that they were bad people. It was just that they were unbelievably fake. All they seemed to care about was going to homecoming, smoking weed and hanging out at the football games by the bleachers. That wasn't to say she hadn't met a few great friends along the way, but most of them just didn't seem to have a good grasp on life. In a corrupt society where it was clear the world was becoming worse and worse everyday, all they seemed to care about was who was dating who. Erin didn't want that. If anything, she wanted to be the girl that ran out into the battlefield and pulled people out. _A hero. That would be good. Not if anyone else has anything to say about it though...._

The idea of her telling the others how she really felt was almost laughable. If she told Adrienne she wanted to go out and fight a political battle for change, she probably would have laughed in her face and told her to get her ass to to the party and shut up. It was such a fake enviroment. And unfortunately, it was an enviroment that she would be stuck in for the next four years if high school didn't find a way to end sooner. They didn't treat her as an equal. They didn't treat her as a person. All they treated her as was what they wanted to see when they saw her: a whore.

"_They don't care",_ Erin thought_. "None of them do. The only thing high school did for you was give you a few good lays and probably a few good diseases to go with them. It ruined your life. And he's the only one that-_

It all happened so fast. Erin's inner monologue ended when she became aware of the figure dashing out of the bushes. Before she knew it, she was face-to-face with the heavy carbines of a machine gun. The figure shadowed himself in the bushes, holding the weapon at her with a sense of expertise. Too terrified to move, Erin froze in panic as her jaw dropped. She pictured her head being churned to a bloody paste as the bullets ricocheted through her skull. _Don't move…it'll be over if you move…just stay still…._

The gun came closer until it was practically forcing itself into her pupil. Cringing from the pain but knowing that moving would be a guaranteed death sentence, she stayed put as she tried to make out her attacker was. However, from the angle she was at with the weapon pointed at her, all she could see was that it was a relatively tall boy with a head of scraggly, dark hair. For a second she considered just fighting back right there. But that was before she made the connection; the familiar voice that triggered something the moment he spoke.

"Stand still", the boy barked.

It came rushing in like a tidal wave. She'd been looking for him, but she'd never expected to run into him like this. Despite the machine gun aimed at her face, a big grin appeared on Erin's face.

"David?"

It was him. Peering out of the bushes with the weapon cradled in his arms, David Rodriguez (Boy #14) stared at her like he'd just seen a ghost. A muscular boy of Columbian descent with a head of long and greasy black hair, he wasn't the kind of person at first glance that people expected Erin to fall at her feet for. But he was. And she'd found him._ She'd finally found him!_

David's jaw dropped. "Erin?"

"David?'

"ERIN!"

"DAVID!"

The machine gun fell to the floor of the jungle as the two lovers embraced. Even with the smell of sweat and dirt all over him, she knew there was no other person in the world whose arms she wanted to be in. Overwhelmed with joy, David grabbed Erin by the waist and hoisted her into the air. They both collapsed back to the muddy earth, falling beside each other as they glanced up at the trees. The early radiance of the sunlight glistened down through the trees on them.

"I thought we were done", David said quietly.

"I thought so too", Erin replied. "But in times like this, I think we should all be willing to make exceptions".

"True, true. Anyway, how have you been holding up around here?"

"It's been hell", Erin sighed. "Give me a pen and paper and I could probably write a novel on just yesterday alone. It's a long story".

"I'm all ears", David said. "Want to fill me in on the way back?'

"The way back where?'

David smiled. "We have a whole revolution going on. I've just been keeping watch around here. We can't afford anything bad happening and there's some fucked up people around here. Me and Miguel, we have this whole plan to get back at the bastards who sent us all here. Gonna nuke em' sky high".

Erin smiled but felt her heart sink on the inside. It was just like David to resort to violence in the face of disaster. It was sad, because for the most part, he was one of the most peaceful people in Spanish Rivers High. A pacifist who hated fighting, he just had the uncanny luck to always end up in situations where he got other people hurt. He had brains, but unfortunately, his brawn seemed to take over before they had a chance to think. David was known for flinching at small noises when he walked down the hallway. Erin remembered one incident where that Enrique kid had tapped on his shoulder and David, startled beyond belief, had turned and knocked out three of his teeth. After that, David had been seen running out of school with tears in his eyes and screaming about how stupid he was. To her, it was the saddest thing in the world. He didn't want to hurt people. And Erin knew it. It just sort of happened…

"Things are going down pretty well", David continued. "We have everything we need to get the job done". He paused. "We could use another helping hand though. I mean, just you. I don't want anyone else in on this".

"Well, you can count me in", Erin said with a smile.

David grinned "Glad to hear".

And so with that, the couple that had been meeting in secret for almost four months got up from the ground and started to walk to the tram station.

* * *

It was an odd relationship to say the least. In traditional standards, they really weren't meant for each other. They came from two separate worlds. Erin had been born into an aristocratic southern family while David had immigrated into the United States at six with the bare minimum of what his father's wallet could manage. Their walks of life went in different directions. Rich and popular. Poor and ghetto. Two stereotypes that they'd been unwillingly forced into by all of the evils that high school had to offer.

But none of that had stopped them from falling in love. It had happened at the party that Amber had during the first snow storm of the year. The Prescotts lived in a farmland estate where large, grassy hills went on for acres. The basic plan of the night was for everyone to get together, get drunk, and go sledding during the snowfall. At first, the party had seemed like the many party that had happened before. When Erin wandered into the backyard with a snow tube and a crate of booze, she'd looked at the other partygoers in dismay. As she walked through the crowd, she grimaced as they pointed at her, giggled, and whispered. Just for fear of someone taking advantage of her again, she'd piled herself with snow clothes before she came so some opportunistic pervert wouldn't be able to undress her. It wasn't like it mattered though. She wouldn't even have a choice if Adrienne had anything to say about it. _Things aren't going to be any different…_

But they had. Three hours into the party, she'd been hanging out on Amber's porch watching the snow with the others when the muscular figure of Chris Barrister had wandered up with a sled in his hands. His words were hard to make out through his drunken slur, but, "you", "sled", and, "c'mon", had managed to shine through. Grabbing her before she had a chance to protest, he'd dragged her out across the backyard, out onto the field, and finally up on the hill where the rest of the partygoers were sledding. Chris moved aggressively, knocking the others out of the way as he made his way up the hill with the sled in one hand and Erin in the other. A few times during the walk he tried to kiss her, but she managed to turn her head away. She couldn't shake off his grip though.

Eventually, they reached the top of the hill and he threw her hard onto the sled. He'd tried to advance toward her, but many nights just like this had given Erin more of an instinct to fight back. Now that she was free, she tried desperately to fight off the quarterback. But it was no use. And everyone else seemed too into the fun to realize what he was trying to do to her. Eventually, realizing that Erin wasn't going to comply, the drunken boy glared, sat down on the sled with her, and started pushing his way toward the edge of the hill. Even days later, she wasn't sure why he did this. Maybe he thought a romantic sled ride with a girl was how you got into her pants. Or he could have just been too drunk to think straight.

They reached the edge and started speeding down with the frost flying at them from the front of the sled. The cold wind had whipped at Erin's eyes as the world blurred around her. There was no getting out. He had her.

Only a few seconds later, Chris's karma did catch up with him. A tree root edging out of the hill sent them flying off track and the blades of the sled slicing through the snow. The whole sled had spun wildly as Chris struggled to grab the ropes. He wasn't able to regain control in time though. The sled slammed into a tree and sent the two occupants flying into the air. Chris flew roughly ten feet away and ended up breaking his wrist against a rock. Erin, meanwhile, tumbled down the snowy hill, struggling to regain balance as she felt the world drag her down. She tried to steady herself but only ended up rolling through the cold with no sense of direction. The hill became steeper, and before she knew it, it became hard like a frying pan. _Hard like ice. _There was a cracking the next thing Erin knew, the ice of the frozen pond she'd just rolled onto shattered under her weight and she was submerged in the icy water.

The next few minutes moved with a sense of panic where she could only recall faint memories of it; gargling on the chilling water and feeling hypothermia kick in, hearing screaming voices running toward her, sensing people around her not knowing what the hell they should have done. And then, before she knew it, she was being fished out of the pond by a pair of powerful arms with a crowd awaiting her at the shore. After feeling her body flipped over on the snow, she opened her eyes and felt a great pressure in her chest. Sitting above her was the soaking wet figure of David Rodriguez in a winter coat. He was pressing his hands over and over into her chest, in turn causing water to spurt from her mouth each time. When he came close to press her again, she smelt his breathe and realized he hadn't been drinking like the rest of them. It was a minor detail, but it was one that made her smile.

About half an hour later, they were both sitting on the porch shivering with beach towels wrapped around them. They'd both wanted to call 911, but considering how there was empty boxes of beer lying everywhere in the backyard, everyone else had out ruled this as a bad idea. Chris, meanwhile, had been picked up by his older sister in her Volvo and made up some alibi to cover up for the broken wrist. As David and Erin watched the howling quarterback's friends dragging him to the car, they'd started talking. They'd talked about a lot.

And after that, things had gone off spectacularly. They'd met secretly almost every weekend, usually just for a short walk in the park or a quick smoke at the old playground. They couldn't be together long. Both knew if their friends found out that one of the school's Queen Bees was dating a lowly thug, they never would have heard the end of it. Erin's parents wouldn't have taken kindly to it either. Believing strongly in old southern morals, the idea of their pasty-skinned daughter dating a poor Hispanic boy was almost laughable.

But that didn't matter. The best part for Erin was that she was free. They hadn't been forced into a closet together at a party. They'd met naturally and knew they loved each other much more than half of the one-night romances high school could cook up. For once, she wasn't a whore that was forced to screw just for the hell of it. She was a woman who made her own choices and was with someone she actually cared about. And none of the shallow girls at school would have anything to say about it.

But that wasn't saying there weren't a few bumps and bruises in the relationship. David's violent instinct that he detested so much came up more than once. He tried to fight her battles for her at every chance he got, screaming his mind out at girls when he heard them gossiping about her. And that got even worse when it came to the guys. Without even thinking, David roared and ran into fights over his girlfriend's dignity. And when he stumbled away bleeding and crying his eyes out, he could only mumble about how stupid he was and he just wanted it all to end. He would scream. And he could scream pretty damn loud too. As he sobbed on the floor in front of her, he'd scream about everything. _How he was expected to fight just because of the people he hung out with. How stupid fighting was. How stupid he was. How he always got himself roped into fighting without thinking. How peace was a much better option that just didn't seem to exist…_

And then it had gotten too much to handle. Cornering her him one day after he sprained his arm in a fight with one of her former boyfriends, Erin quickly and tearfully broke up with him. It was hard on both of their parts, and she thought about it for weeks after, but she did it and she knew it was the right choice. She didn't want to stay around just to see somebody she loved get hurt. It was better that way…

And the worst part was, no matter how she could convince herself otherwise, he was the only person in the world that treated her like an equal. She needed to talk to him again. But not at school. School only led to hell, and she knew it. And that was why, upon waking up in a classroom on an island only weeks later, that she'd made it her pact before death to find and reconcile with him.

* * *

Erin couldn't help but feel a little apprehensive as she walked up to the tram station. The whole structure was intimidating to say the least. Twenty feet in the air and looking remotely like a log cabin in the trees with one wall sawed off for the loading dock, it looked like it would fall apart on them at any minute. This didn't seem to faze David at all though. With the machine gun slung over his shoulder in his powerful arms, he started walking toward the ladder that was nailed to the tree and began climbing. About three rungs up, he turned back to her.

"C'mon!" David called jokingly. "I'll race you to the top!"

"There's a stairwell over there", Erin said. "Can't we just walk up?"

"Aw, where's your sense of adventure, chica? What's the fun in that?"

"Are you sure this thing is safe?" Erin asked. "I feel like if I stomp on it hard enough it'll come crashing down".

"Well, then don't stomp", David replied with a grin. "If you're afraid of heights, just keep staring at the ladder when you climb. Anyway, come on up! There's so much we have to show you!"

Taking in a deep breath, Erin walked to the ladder and began climbing up after him. She vanished into the tree's canopy as she climbed, completely hiding her from view. The place really was safe. The odds of someone actually finding them were almost non-existent.

"Ever see that movie The War?" David called. "The one where Elijah Wood and his friends build a treehouse and these bastards come down to knock down everything they worked for? And there's all these little tidbits about Veitnam with his father?"

"My memory sucks. If a movie came out more than five years ago, I might as well have not even seen it at all".

"Don't bother then…", he said as he scaled the ladder. "Piece of shit movie if I've ever seen one. I can't stand those flicks with all of those fake undertones about keeping a family together. It sucks, because I swear to God, in the last few hours, that damn movie is the only thing I've been thinking about. Whenever I close my eyes, all I see is Elijah Wood and his big ass ears staring down at me. But I think the reason I keep thinking about it is because we're all fighting a war out here. Even if it's not over something simple a like a treehouse, a war's a war. Violence is violence".

"I guess you're right…." Erin said. She never knew how to reply when he started talking like this. Nobody did really…

Grabbing onto the last rung, she slid her belly up onto the platform and climbed up after her boyfriend. She caught her breathe for a second before looking around at her surroundings. As it turned out, there wasn't much to look at.

"This is your revolution?" Erin asked as she looked around.

"It's not much", David said. "But sit back and watch it grow".

The tram station really wasn't much. Aside from a small loading dock where two trams were stocked on the cable, there wasn't anything else there besides a few dusty drawers sidelined on the wall and a dim bulb hanging in the center of the room. There was a glass control booth to the rear of the drawers with so many buttons inside that Erin didn't want to go near them in fear of breaking them. The entire station had the musty smell of wood in a hardware store.

"How long have you been camping out here?" Erin asked.

"Since around noon yesterday", David said. "We started the game in that big pink mansion and moved out after a few hours". He paused. "Moving out was the best bet. Especially after Enrique died…"

"Sorry about that", Erin sighed. "I heard his name on the first announcement. Poor guy didn't last that long…"

"No", David said. "No, he didn't".

The two of them walked across the wooden planks that made up the floor of the station. As they got closer to the loading dock, Erin made out a dull thudding sound coming from behind one of the trams. As they got closer, she was able to put two-and-two together when she saw Miguel Chavez (Boy #3). Kneeling down on the floor with his shirt wrapped around his head in a bandanna, he was hammering at the side of the red cable car with a determined look on his face. This wasn't anything new though. One of the leaders of the criminal element at Spanish Rivers High, Miguel had always been known for being ambitious and getting things done. She'd always liked him. And there was a good reason too. As far as Erin knew, he was the only other person in the world that knew they were dating. And he'd done a pretty decent job keeping it a secret too. The guy was definitely someone who had respect for his friends.

At the sight of her, Miguel looked up briefly, nodded, and returned to his work. Peering through the plexi-glass window of the tram, Erin was met with the odd sight of what looked like fifty glass bottles bobbing with kerosene oil.

"Molotov cocktails", Miguel answered like he read her mind. "We're pulling a fucking Hiroshima on them".

"We've been planning it all day", David said. 'We're loading the tram with explosives and sending it out over the school. Then we're slicing the cable so it falls and nukes all them".

"Are you sure that's going to work?" Erin asked. "I mean, I don't mean to be negative for this whole thing, but we're talking about one of the most powerful empires on the planet besides the Republic. I think they would have thought of something like this. There's got to be a loophole somewhere here".

"We haven't found one yet", Miguel replied. "So I'd say we're good to go. Anyway, how've things been for you Erin? David find you when he was keeping watch?"

"He came pretty damn close to blowing my brains out", Erin said. "But yeah, he found me. And things have sort of gone downhill for me and the girls".

"Have you lost anyone?" Miguel asked.

"Only one so far", Erin said. "Tori died last night. But I think if things keep up the way they are, we'll all be dead by midnight. Adrienne's taking us all out like a big chess board and it's only a matter of time until she cracks under the pressure too. It's all just a big mess out there and I don't think it's going to get any better".

"_A cada puerco le llega su sabado_", David said.

Erin smiled. "No hablo Espanol".

"It means that everyone gets what's coming to them in the end", David explained. "Even if things look bad, there's karma in the universe and it's going to get everyone good if they don't start thinking right. Even the people behind this game that think they're the top of the universe just because they're doing a sick favor for Uncle Sam. You know what I mean?"

"So everyone gets what's coming to them?" Erin asked.

"Unless God has anything else to say about it", David said with a grin. "I mean, everyone's been pretty fucked up in the world lately. We've done a pretty good job digging ourselves into a hole that we can't get out of. It's all a big empire waiting to fall. They take away our rights. Life, liberty, freedom. And they just leave us with fear. This whole game. It's just a scare tactic that we can't escape from".

"But people have escaped", Erin said smartly. "Remember those kids in Japan?"

"Urban legend", Miguel said as he hammered the tram again. "Never happened".

"You might as well hope, man", David said. "You never really know. Right Erin?"

"Right", she said with a smile.

"C'mon, I want to show you something weird".

Erin grinned. "Besides Elijah Wood's ears?"

"Trust me, it's even weirder".

The two of them walked down the long string of cable that made up the loading dock. They walked until they reached the very edge where the wall gave out into nothing but a steep fall into the forest. Always scared of heights, Erin couldn't help but stand back a little as her boyfriend walked right to the edge. Bending down and somehow not tipping over to his death, his eyes scanned across the forest ground like a vulture. Then a wide smile appeared on his face.

"Check that out", he said.

At first it seemed like he was pointing at nothing. With the amount of foliage that covered the canopy of the forest, it certainly seemed that way. But as she took a step forward and looked closer, she saw that it was far from the blind spot she thought it was. Squinting her eyes, Erin was able to make out what seemed like a deep hole in the forest ground. Although splintered with scrapings of wood like planks had once been covering it, it looked like a dark shaft that led straight to hell.

"Some kind of mine shaft", David said. "I've looked around, and I swear, they're all over the island. I think the government might have opened them up just so we can use them to get around".

"Nobody would be stupid enough to go down there", Erin said."It's suicide".

"Who knows?" David said. "There's different minds out ther-

"Good morning everyone!"

The voice blared out of the many intercoms that had been wired inside the tram station. Although it had notable electronic distortion, there was no mistaking the southern drawl of Reynold Burke. The couple was suddenly silent as the program instructor continued to speak.

"Well, I have to say that things have been much better this time around. You've gotten yourselves a half-decent body count that's made the viewers at home proud of you. We'd especially like to congratulate those involved in the bog massacre. What a great display of what this game was about. Carnage, betrayal, you had all of that shit going on. Hell, even _I'm_ proud of you, but that's really not saying much, is it? Ah well, you're the real stars here anyway. Time for the list of your dead friends, in the order they died. Eddie Dunnerman, Boy #4, Chris Barrister, Boy #2, Preston Tracy, Boy #18, Winston Van Buren, Boy #19 and Demi Marigold, Girl #7. A total of five. And now the Danger Zones. I thought I would go lenient on you kids this time because you've been keeping up with the murders. They'll only be two. G1 at 8:39 and F6 at 9:40. Keep up the good work, and remember, somebody here gets to go home. And there's nothing that's stopping it from being you. And on a final note, we've noticed that you think that you can team up with your friends and rebel. Before you launch a suicide mission that will get you all killed, really look at everyone around you. The people that you call your friends. Can you really trust them? Burke out".

There was an eerie silence between them for a moment. Neither of them felt it was right to say anything. In the distance, they heard a loud gunshot that ran out through the forest. _Things really aren't getting any better here…_

"I'm really sorry about how things turned out, Erin", David said finally. "I…I just can't help myself sometimes. I just end up fighting before I can think. It's like a survival instinct, y'know?"

"It's okay", Erin sighed. "Maybe things happen for a reason".

"Maybe they do", he sighed. "But I was an asshole. I had no right laying a finger on that just because he was talking about you". He paused. "Did your friends ever talk about me".

"They never knew. We kept everything under the radar and we did a damn good job of it. I don't need the fact that I like you on the fucking tabloids. But they talked about the stuff you and your gang did a lot. Especially Adrienne. She said really nasty stuff sometimes. I tried to get her to shut up but she always had a way of turning the tables. Even if the truth's staring her right in the face, she'll just deny it and use her fucked up logic to prove she's right".

"Like the flat earth society", David said. "Those people. They think the world's still flat…."

"Yeah", Erin sighed. "Yeah, sure, let's go with that…"

He said strange things sometimes. It was best to just brush it off and smile like he'd made a joke. But when she did, David didn't smile back. He eyed her with a repressed look on his face, almost like he'd been wanting to get his feelings out for a long time.

"Things are going down soon, Erin", David replied. "We're all on the road to fucking extinction if we don't get off this island. Hell, if we don't get out of this country soon everyone's just off to become another Rome. Nobody thinks it's possible because they've got American pride drilled in their head, but their great empire's going to kick them in the ass when it falls apart. I was planning on dropping school next year, you know. Maybe not next, but definitely junior. I was tired of everything and I couldn't make the grades anyway, so I thought it was a good choice to drop out and hit the road. Then I'd show the world who can really make a difference".

"You know", Erin sighed. "If you gave me a little time to think, I probably would have dropped out with you".

"Screw that. You can actually go somewhere with the grades you have and you're smart enough to go with the flow".

"I've been going with the flow my whole life", Erin said. "And I'm sick of going to parties and homecomings when there's a real battle to fight in the world. I can think. Everyone thinks I can't, but I can".

"Damn right you can", David said. "Think you can hold this?"

Erin cringed as he gently placed the machine gun into her arms. Although she was muscular for an average girly-girl, it still felt like she was trying to rip a tree out by its roots. Still, nodding grimly and slinging it over her shoulder, she managed to hold it up.

"Yeah, I can hold it…"

"Then go back to the beach", he order. "Get your friends and bring them back here. I don't trust any of the people out there, but if they're your friends, that's good enough for me. I don't want any of you stopping for anything. Get back here and we'll all end up getting off this island together. Does that sound good?"

"I don't know about this, Dave. I kind of think you guys are piloting yourselves right into the ground…"

"Don't talk like that", David hissed. "Miguel knows what he's doing. You just have to have a little faith in him…"

"I'm trying to", Erin admitted. "But there's room everywhere for a surprise….

"Fair enough", David sighed. "Just get back as soon as you can, all right?"

And then he kissed her. At first she was surprised, almost shocked, but that died out almost instantly when she felt his warm lips. Standing on the edge of the tram station and eclipsed by the morning sun rise, the two silhouettes kissed as they hugged each other as tightly as they could. For just a moment, the island was gone. The game of death was gone. Even time was gone as they stood there a world away from the suffering that was just outside the station. Finally, with a smile forming on his face, David let go and backed away.

"Don't do anything stupid", David said.

"I'm an accident magnet", Erin said with a grin. "But I'll do my best".

But there was something wrong now. His eyes that had been so mellow a second ago were now as wide as dinner plates and filled with panic. Stepping back from her even more, his eyes became even larger to the point where it looked like he was about to have a heart attack.

"No…" he said. "No fucking way…."

Following his gaze out across the edge, Erin felt her blood run cold when she saw the movement by the mine shaft. At first it could have been a trick of her eyes, almost too awful to be true, but there was no denying that somebody was there. _Somebody has to come now. God damn it, why the hell does somebody have to come now?_

The figure seemed oblivious to them as it crawled out of the mine shaft. Relatively short and covered from head to toe in dirt from the shaft, it climbed out like something that had risen from the very center of the earth. Almost like she was behind a glass wall, Erin found herself powerless to do anything. Just the look in David's eyes was enough to tell her what was going to happen. It was the same look he had whenever he ran into a fight at school and came back sobbing. The same look that had caused her to break up with him. _The violent instinct…_

"MIERDA!" David screamed. "HIJO DE PUTA! MIERDA! WE'RE ALL FUCKED!"

Without another word, he jumped up from the loading dock and onto the platform with the chest of drawers. Practically knocking one over as he slid into it, his hands fumbled as he grabbed his assigned pistol sitting on top of it. Quickly cocking it and making sure it was loaded, he jumped back into the dock and ran to the edge.

"DAVID STOP!"

But there was no stopping him now. She could almost feel the adrenaline and fear coursing through his body. David fired a shot toward the forest ground by the shaft that seemed to shake the entire station. The figure seemed to stop in its tracks for a second, both terrified and dazed at the sound of the bullet rebounding against the shaft behind them. The stranger gazed up at the trees frightened, contemplating what his next step was going to be. Shocking everyone beyond belief, he made the decision quickly. The figure ran directly toward the direction of the station's pillars. They were smart. Instead of running around in the open like a moving target, they were running for cover. _And now they're coming up the ladder….they're coming up the ladder to get us and we're all just sitting duck!_

Something had to be done. It was like déjà vu. With David always putting himself into situations where he got himself hurt just for her safety, Erin had always been sidelined with no input on the situation. But she had input now, and it was that it was a matter of life or death. Things were going to get bad fast. And if she wanted to end it, she had to do something about it. Cursing under her breathe, Erin dashed down the loading dock and felt the constant thudding of the gears that sent the tram outward under her sneakers. Finally reaching the tram that was docked near the end, she saw Miguel sitting there with an awestruck look on his face. A half-assembled Molotov cocktail was in his hand.

"What the hell is going on?" the boy screamed.

"It's David!" Erin wailed. "Someone's coming and…and...and....man, he always get like this! And I don't know what to do!

"God damn it", Miguel sighed. "God damn it…."

Without even a sign of approval from Erin, Miguel rummaged into his pocket and pulled out his cigarette lighter. Swearing under his breath, he soaked the cocktail's wet rag in the gasoline for a moment. Then, lightning the soaking rag and dunking it back into the glass vial, he swung back his arm with a look of sheer rage.

"What are you doing?" Erin cried. "I thought you wanted people to join you! And now you're just lighting them on fire? What kind of logic is that?"

"Just chill!" Miguel screamed. "I'm not torching them! The last person I wanted to join us actually _got _fucking lit on fire by that genius over there! I'll just throw it out on the floor near the ladder and scare them away. If they want to save themselves, they'll come back at a better time when things aren't falling apart! Or at least until that boyfriend of yours calms down a little!"

"But-

"ERIN, I'M DOING THIS TO SAVE US BEFORE THINGS GET WORSE!'

Without warning, Miguel lobbed the Molotov cocktail over their heads where it spun like a flying lantern through the early sunrise. Halfway toward the ladder though, it ended up being cut short by something that had blocked its path. At that moment, both Erin and Miguel screamed in horror at what had happened. Neither of them had noticed David running down the loading dock with his pistol and screaming like a banshee. It looked like he was trying to get to the ladder and kill the attacker before they could get up. Instead of getting there, he intercepted the path of the cocktail and was consumed in liquid flames when the bottle exploded and sent shards of fiery glass in every direction.

"HOLY FUCK!" Miguel cried. "DAVE!"

Howling and dancing with wisps of blue and orange dancing out of him, David dropped to the ground with kindergarten philosophy and started rolling to put out the flames. This worked very well as it turned out, considering how the floors were wooden, but it also resulted in the chain reaction of the planks of the floor beginning to catch small patches of fire. The entire place had gone from a sanctuary of revolution to a hell house. Somehow still firing off shots, David howled in agony as he struggled to beat out the last of the flames on his pant leg.

"HE'S GETTING UP!" David screamed. "HE'S GETTING UP! I MEAN, HOLY SHIT! WE'RE ALL FUCKED!'

He was screaming again, and this was what terrified Erin even more than the flames. Whenever this happened, that peaceful, caring boy vanished and a paranoid maniac who attacked the first thing he saw emerged. Swearing rapidly in Spanish, David reloaded the pistol and shot wildly at the direction of the ladder. They all heard the shots rebounding off the wood wall and chipping away layers of sawdust. _Bam…thud…bam...thud…_

"FUCK!" David screamed. "I CAN'T GET A CLEAN SHOT! HE'S COMING UP! HE'S COMING UP FOR CHRIST'S SAKE!'

And he was. Ghostly hands appeared on the top of the ladder and quickly pulled up their owner. It was now undeniably a boy. Running out across the platform and like he'd just seen a ghost, the figure that they'd seen outside dashed into the center of the room with his arms flailing. With the single dim bulb in the center of the room illuminating his face, Erin saw his face for a split-second. And that split-second was all she needed. It was Nathan Carpenter (Boy #16). A short boy with auburn hair in her English class who rarely talked, he was known for his reputation of being one of the biggest nerds the school had to offer. Right now, that quiet boy who spent his time reading manga seemed like a thing of the past. Nathan's face was beyond pale and his hair was speckled in grime from the mineshaft. He ducked behind a crate beside the loading dock to avoid another shot from the pistol.

"_MUERES!'_ David screamed._ "MUERES! MUERES! MUERES! DON'T COME ANYWHERE NEAR ME YOU SICK FUCK!"_

There was no turning back now. Even if Nathan hadn't entered the station for a battle, it was now exactly what he was going to get. All sanity in the situation had been completely lost. All that remained was people screaming in unruly chaos with no real sense of what was going on. People were just fighting now for the sake of fighting. Standing there with the machine gun and no real clue of what to do, Erin looked behind her to see Miguel lighting another cocktail. It looked like he was trying to flush Nathan back to the ladder.

"HOLD ON DAVE!" Miguel screamed. "DON'T DO ANYTHING! DON'T HURT HIM! I'LL GET HIM OUT! I'LL DO IT RIGHT! I'LL GET HIM OUT!"

The criminal lobbed another cocktail that went flying toward the crate that Nathan was hiding behind. The nerd scrambled out and dashed down the loading dock with his arms flailing in the air and David on his tail. A burst of roaring flames went soaring up into the high awing of the ceiling as Erin shrieked and ducked into the safety of the tram behind Miguel. Reacting on blind instinct, she fired off a volley of shots with the heavy machine gun that shook her entire body. The bullets ricocheted in every direction, but unfortunately, they had no affect on the battle. Nobody was scared. They had no affect on diverting or breaking up the fight. _Just make the fighting end, girl. Just end it all. Don't let anything bad happen again. Don't let David fight a battle he can't get himself out o-_

_CREEEEKKKK!_

There was a sudden cracking sound that ran through the entire station. It almost resembled the sound of the world's largest door slowly peeking open. But this was far from a door. It was mighty, and was almost like mountains crumbling apart. Gazing up at ceiling of the station that stretched far above their heads, Erin felt her jaw drop at the harrowing sight before her. With the fire licking the ancient roof, the entire thing was beginning to collapse. Different sizes of plaster fell like a hail storm with a mist of sawdust spraying down. _Creek…creek…creek…._

"OH MY GOD!" Erin screamed. "DUCK!"

There was a sound of obscene tearing like worlds collided. Pieces of plaster much bigger than the ones before began falling with sickening thuds as the entire section of roof above them fell apart on itself. Rolling out of the tram and dashing down the loading dock, Erin felt herself being speckled with bits of raining sawdust as she ran through the mess like a meteor shower. She had managed to get out in time. Miguel wasn't so lucky…

Too busy soaking the rag of another cocktail, he wasn't prepared for the enormous chunk of roof that fell against the tram and rocked the entire trolley senselessly. The boy's body was thrown against the glass bottles like an oil-soaked rag doll before he smashed his head hard against the side of the tram's doorway. Then he fell slumped against the door with his tongue hanging loosely out of his mouth. To Erin he looked like a tired dog in front of a screen door. He sat there in a near-catatonic state, unconscious and oblivious to the horrors around him.

"_Don't look back…" _she thought. "You'll stop if you look back at him….just keep running…."

Rushing down the loading dock toward the sawed-off wall, Erin almost felt elated when she discovered that she wasn't too late. David hadn't managed to have killed Nathan yet. Despite being so small, the nerd was surprisingly agile when it came to dodging the bullets and slid around on the planks like it was a dance floor to avoid the pop-shots from the pistol. David was relentless. Closing in on him and running around in a sharp circle, he seemed to have a complete tunnel-vision of killing the boy that had intruded on the safety of him and his friends. The strange thing was that there seemed to be several times where David had gotten direct shots to Nathan's torso. They didn't seem to weaken him at all. _The hell? Is the guy made out of titanium?_

Her senses didn't seem to matter anymore. All that mattered was stopping the repetition of going with the flow. All that mattered was not standing on the side anymore and watching the person she loved killing himself just so she could live a half-assed normal life. It was time, and if it wasn't, she was going to go down making a difference. Screaming as loudly as she could, Erin ran into the cross fire with her mind screaming at her heart to do otherwise.

"STOP!" Erin screamed. "THIS ISN'T RIGHT! NOBODY-

The impact of the chunk of roof hitting her in the head was tremendous. With a brilliant flash of light drilling itself into her head, her eyes clouded over as she was knocked to the ground in a daze. The machine gun clattered noisily but was hardly heard over the roaring flames of the fire and David's incomprehensible screaming in Spanish. The sight of her being sent sprawling to the ground didn't seem to end the horror at all. If anything, it only strengthened it. Nathan had nowhere to go now. Completely circled into a corner and left kneeling on the ground with his glasses caked in blood, he gazed at the boy's pistol in horror as it aimed at his head.

"DON'T HURT US!" David screamed. "YOU HAVE TO GO! YOU HAVE TO FUCKING GO!"

"What the hell man?' Nathan choked. "I…I didn't do anything…"

"DON'T COME ANYWHERE NEAR HER!" David roared. "JUST DON'T COME ANYWHERE NEAR H-

His hands were fumbling on the trigger. It would only be a few seconds before they fumbled a little too much and sent Nathan's brains flying out across the loading dock. Laying out across the floor with her head pounding like a drumbeat, Erin's eyes darted through the action like rapid photos spit out of a Polaroid. David's face a mess of tears and anger that didn't hide his fear. The fire licking the entire station to the bone. And most of all, Nathan eyeing the machine gun on the ground with a grim look on his face.

It all happened so fast.

There was a flash of movement as Nathan ducked forward to avoid the pistol shot and grabbed the machine gun. Then there was a sudden clattering sound of fingers against a typewriter as the weapon fired at his attacker. Three red holes appeared in the center of David's stomach and spit out his guts in a gory mess. His eyes grew wide, and just for a second, the violent instinct that had fed on so much fighting seemed to go away. A look of pure humanity returned to his eyes as he stood shaking like an old, disheveling scarecrow being shaken by crows. His hands clutched his stomach as he bowled over and looked down at her with a look of pure shock on his face.

The blow to Erin's head seemed like it had vanished completely. Feeling her heart skip a beat, she sat up from the ground and shrieked:

"DAVID!"

It didn't even seem to drill into his head that she had spoken. With a sickening rat-a-tat of bullets from the machine gun, bloody mists sprayed out of his stomach like water pumps. Another bullet arced through his skull and spit out his left eye into a white and red past. His jaw dropped dumbly. Falling to his knees with the front of his shirt stained with red, David's corpse stared at his girlfriend with eyes that were far beyond seeing and a mouth that was far beyond speaking. But that almost seemed fitting to her. Nothing needed to be said. And then, shaking convulsively from the shock of the bullets tearing up his intestines, he fell to the floor dead.

"NO!' Erin shrieked. "NO, NO, DAVID!"

Completely shell-shocked by the murder, Erin was only vaguely aware of Nathan running past the scene of the crime with the machine gun in his hands. Quickly gazing down at her, he gave her a sorrowful nod before dashing down the loading dock. He didn't stop. Screaming into the morning, he leapt off the burning station and vanished into the twenty-foot fall that separated him from the forest ground.

It wasn't a killing fall. He would survive. But none of that mattered to Erin. The boy that had just jumped was a world away as she crawled over to the ruined corpse of David Rodriguez. Death didn't seem real. She'd been close to death several times before, but there was nothing like staring into the eyes of someone who had actually met their end. Especially if it was someone you cared about. _The only person you cared about…._

"I'm sorry David…" Erin muttered. "I'm really, really sorry…."

The boy didn't say anything. Sniffling and wiping away her tears, Erin brushed some of the wet blood off of David's cheeks. It didn't do much to clean him up, but if anything, it made his face seem a little more peaceful. If there was any transition into the next life, she wanted his to go as smooth as possible. And he would get to the next life. That was certain. He'd done a few bad things. But he had a good mind and a good heart that had been destined to get him to great places.

"You were real", Erin muttered. "You were so real. Everyone else just wanted to take and run away. You were the only one that ever sat down and had the heart to give. You weren't in on it just to get in on a fucking screw. You weren't like the rest of them. And you didn't forget me. So I'm not going to forget you…."

Still sniffling, Erin wrenched the pistol from his dead hands. Digging into the pockets of his jeans, she rummaged around for a moment before she retrieved a half-opened package of ammunition that he hadn't used yet. Then, forcing herself up from the ground in a shambling walk, she started to walk toward the sawed-open wall that gave out into the long cable that circled the whole island. There was nobody left. She had no one. Even if she returned to the beach, the only thing that would led to was a guaranteed death sentence.

But she'd keep running. The reconcilation was over. It had ended badly, but it was over. And there was nothing left to do now but run for it and pray for the very best. She'd survive for as long as she could. She didn't know how long that really was, but if anything, she'd make a point to all of them amd make it as far as she could.

Tightening her grip on the pistol, Erin closed her eyes and jumped into the twenty-foot foot from the burning tram station. _Fucking game..._

* * *

Nathan Carpenter (Boy #16) couldn't take it. He felt like screaming his lungs out, even though he knew for a fact that nobody would care to listen. Running away from the station with his heart pounding in his chest, he pretended not to hear the fiery bursts of every window in the elevated cabin exploding outward and flying out of the loading dock in a paroxysm of colliding glass. But he did. He heard it all.

Gazing back, he could only gaze in awe at the flaming structure of the tram station like some kind of burning man festival back in the hippy days. The entire foundation of the treehouse shook, but for some reason, it didn't seem to be collapsing. The foundation was strong, and if it kept up the way it did, it would go on burning until there was nothing left of the wood at all. _Maybe until the very end of the game…._

_WHERRRR!_

With a dull whining sound, one of the two trams detached itself from the cable and heaved out of the loading dock and into the forest. The sound of it landing was like a dinosaur stomping on the ground. The other tram, blown backward from the explosion, went skidding outward from the loading dock still firmly attached to the cable. Flying down the zipline, it vanished through the trees and out of sight with an evil hissing sound. And that was the destruction that was the burning of the Cuna Cielo tram station.

Nathan stared up at all of it with a grim look on his face. It was all so horrible. He hadn't wanted to kill David. All in all, he wasn't that bad of a guy. While the rest of the guys he hung out with tormented Nathan to no end, there had actually been times when David had stood up him. One of the biggest examples had been the time Tony DeHerrera, a school thug who easily weighed over two-hundred pounds of pure muscle, had cornered Nathan in the locker room after causing his team to lose an intense volleyball match in gym class. Before he even had a chance to pick on him, David had run in and flipped him over two lockers like he was nothing. _He was a nice guy. He didn't think before he tried and play the hero and fight, but he was a nice guy…_

And now he'd killed him. Standing beside the burning wreckage, the flames illuminated his hands to see that they were completely stained in blood. He'd murdered him in dry blood and there was no other word for it. That wasn't what a good guy did. A good guy went on his adventure because that was what good guys did. It was like that in fiction, and in fiction, everything made sense. The characters were much more interesting than real people because they made so much more sense._ Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening air, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all which have the potential to turn a life around._

Leo Buscaglia had said that once. He was a good speaker. And those were words that Nathan had drilled into his head long ago. He'd been viewing the whole game like an adventure simply because he didn't know what to make out of it. The lines of good and evil were hard to make out. David had attacked him out of fear. There had to be a reason behind why he did it. The game changed people. All around him, people were deciding to play the game for no reason other than paranoia and distrust. Until now, Nathan hadn't thought much about it. But now, staring out at the burning tram station, he saw that it was far from the right way to go. There had to be a reason people changed. There had to be a reason they wouldn't listen. And it was his duty to find out. _You're going to be a good guy. You're going to stop the murder. You're going to stop it all. You're going to be just like the guys in the books. You're going to be a hero._

Nathan turned around and ran through the forest with every intent of making a difference in the game.

* * *

**Eliminated**

**(Boy #14) Rodriguez, David**

* * *

**23 Students Remaining**


	33. Day 2: Hour 31: 23 Students Remaining

"_What the world needs now is love, sweet love,  
It's the only thing that there's just too little of…"_

The jukebox let the soft rhythm of the Carpenters drift out through the diner. The music was soothing to say the least, and of all things, this was unnerving to her. Prudence was used to the feeling of hard rock making her ears bleed as she pumped herself up for her latest game. Soft music always had an eerie feel to it, almost like something was off and the world was disguising itself. Just the thought of those anti-war songs blabbering out messages about peace was almost frightening to her. All her short life, peace had seemed like a distant thought. When she approached a problem, she took it on with a cold, powerful demeanor like a bull charging with its horn and made it clear that she was going to get things done. _Eh, screw it. Music's music anyway. Beggars can't be choosers…._

"Can I ask you something?" Prudence Mercedes (Girl #8) asked finally.

She was sitting against in one of the many booths that made up the twin aisles of the diner. A half-finished game of cards was sprawled out on the table between her and her sister. The game had been going strong for a few hours, but with both of the girls seeing that it was just a way to procrastinate and past time, it had died out into the cards sitting in a haphazard mess in the center of the table.

"Fire away", Sadie Mercedes (Girl #9) replied.

"If you could have anything in the world to eat right now", Prudence asked "What would it be?'

Her sister smiled softly to herself as she picked up one of their playing cards and tossed it softly into the air. It glided into a sharp arc before flying right through the kitchen window and vanishing from sight. _Perfect shot. Your luck's getting better._ _What does that say about things here?_

"I thought it was going to be some kind of thought-provoking question", Sadie laughed. "I mean, we're in a game of life or death with our lives ticking away at every second and all you care about is being hungry?"

"I'm tired of bread rolls and water", Prudence said thoughtfully. "I mean, how great would it be for some waiter to walk in from that kitchen door and take our order?'

"I'd have an ice tea", Sadie replied. "Then I'd order a French onion soup for an appetizer and get myself a big plate of Asian stir fry to finish the night off".

"I'd get a steak" Prudence said dreamily. "Not just the shitty packaged kind they microwave and dish out with a bowl of watery sauce. A real steak with a nice big glass of Coke on side and some fries. Maybe if I wasn't in the mood for a steak, I'd get a burger. A nice, juicy burger with everything on it".

"I read this article once, y'know", Sadie said. "It said that when you're close to the ocean, you end up getting more of an appetite because of what the salt air does to you. It makes you think you're hungry when you're really not".

"We're nowhere near the shore right now. And I feel like eating a cow".

Leaving the remark hanging in the air, Prudence turned her head and looked around at the chipped and weathered booths and tables scattered around the room. The diner really wasn't much when she thought about it. There was rectangular room full of booths, the kitchen, the restrooms and the cellar. But all in all, it was safe. The fact that there was only one door was a major blow, but still, they had to do the best with what they had. _You're probably not the first person to dream up that philosophy either. A bunch of other people probably thought it too. Dead ones…._

"Do you think anyone deserves what they get out here?" Prudence asked as she turned back to her sister.

Sadie raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

"Well, I thought it was time for a thought-provoking question instead of our regular shit. Do you think this whole thing is some sick kind of justice and we're just getting what we deserve?"

"Well, I think karma's real if that's what you mean", Sadie sighed as she absent-mindedly shuffled the cards in her hand, "There's definitely a few people out had it coming. You can't say everyone's going to be bawling for Chris or that stuck-up bitch Leana".

"Or Jude…." Prudence said softly.

"Or Jude", Sadie agreed sadly. "Do you think we should go out looking for him?"

"Waste of time right now. Besides, you have to face the facts. We don't know how he's going to react to a game like this. I love him just as much as you do, and hell, I'd give my life for both of you any day, but it's too much of a risk to go out looking for him right now if we don't know what he's up to".

"He could just be scared", Sadie said. "People do bad things when they get scared…."

"You're right", Prudence said. "You're naïve, and that's not going to help you out here, but you're right. Anyway, it's not like he's going to have anyone to fall back on if things get bad. He's going to be alon-

"I'm alone too", Sadie cut in. "Anyone I talked to in school is dead now. Risa and Nicole are gone. And you don't see me turning into a murderer".

"I never said Jude was a murderer, alright?" Prudence snapped. "We don't know what's going on his head. We could just be thinking into things too much".

"Maybe we are. You think Spanish Rivers is going to shed any tears for the Mercedes clan?"

"They're not going to have a chance", Prudence said with a smirk. "When this whole thing's over, they're just going to herd all of our families into the football field at night and have some kind of candlelight vigil where they'll talk about how we all had so much to live for. Then they'll play the national anthem and everybody will file out. A week later, nobody will be talking about us".

"They're not going to forget about us", Sadie said. "That's just sick. It's not like we're just going to become ghosts and fade away".

"We might as well. Seriously, can you remember the names of half of the kids who died in the program last year? We're going to be statistics".

There was a moment of silence where Sadie didn't seem to have anything to say. Looking away from her sister, she grabbed another handful of cards and started to shuffle them with false purpose. Looking at her up and down, Prudence couldn't help but a feel a little hopeless. Pale like a porcelain doll with a head of dirty blonde hair and a few folds of loose skin from her eating disorder, Sadie was the very opposite of a fighter. In fact, she was more than that. For a very long time, Sadie had had such low self-esteem that it was hard for her to get any accomplishment out of doing anything. For a very long time, Prudence had always been told to keep her out of harm's way. _You're the older one. Even if it's just by seven minutes, you're the older one. And Jude's just too fucked up in the head on the sidelines to get a real idea of what's going on…._

But none of that really seemed to matter when she took a look at the bigger outlook on things. Although she would scream to no end about how she hated the world they all lived in, she was admittedly all talk and no action. Far from a radical when it came to the bigger issues, Prudence was more fond of screaming furiously from the sidelines then stepping out to take a bullet. Playing lacrosse was so much easier than fighting the world. She _was_ a fighter, and a very opinionated one at that, but she wasn't the kind that was willing to risk her life over something stupid. Besides, her opinions had gotten her ass kicked more than once when she was younger, and that was what led to her visiting the gym every day after school and taking her frustration out on her muscles at the bench press. It was almost nostalgic looking back at those times, and thinking of the cold feel of the metal bar in her hands and the sweat dripping from her brows, she felt like a tired old woman. None of it really made any sense. She wanted change. And she wanted to be the one that went out and got it done. But, with the threat of the unknown in the picture, she wasn't sure how to approach it. _Anger was hard to deal with when it had no real direction to take besides the work-out room at the YMCA…._

"I think we're doing well", Sadie said suddenly. "We haven't seen anyone in awhile and I don't think anyone else is going to come in here and hunt us down…"

"That's okay", Prudence said dismissively. "But don't let your guard down. Things are going to get bad fast. Wait until we get to the end and watch how fast the bullets fly".

"There's still hope to talk things out, you know. I mean, you keep saying we're at the eve of destruction, but so far, nothing's happened. For all we know, things might turn out for the better".

"Yeah", Prudence scoffed. "Keep telling me that when my head's separated from my body tomorrow…"

"Someone's full of hope…."

"Forget hope", Prudence said. "This is an execution. There's no meaning behind it. It's a fucking execution and that's all there is to it. I want to tear the fuckers who put us here up, but right now, there's no way in hell I'm risking my life by going outside. I intend to make it as long as I can before I have to fight again". She paused for a moment. "Want to hear something funny?"

"Sure".

"There's eight grams of weed in the cellar".

Sadie stared. "What?"

"Yeah, I saw it when I went downstairs before to sleep. It's packed in one of those crates like somebody tried to hide it. When I took a look at it, I thought somebody grinded oregano into a bunch of plastic baggies. And then I thought about it later, and I was like, 'who the hell would grind up oregano?' So I took a peek in the bag and sniffed it. It's definitely pot".

"I'm not getting high", Sadie said uncomfortably. "That shit will kill you".

"Weed doesn't do anything to you", Prudence replied. "It just makes you stupid. And the way things are going, I could dumb myself down a little".

"I'll think about it then" Sadie said with a smile. "I mean, man made booze and god made weed. Who do you trust?"

Prudence laughed. "Trust no one, girl. That's what's going to get us far around here. You want to play another round?"

"Sure".

Satisfied with her sister's remark, Prudence swept her hand out across the table in a practiced maneuver and folded the playing cards into her hand. Splitting the load into two hands, she fanned them forward and quickly shuffled the deck with a sound that she would describe as the level of the rat-a-tat of a shotgun. As she dealt the cards out between them, she couldn't help but feel homesick about the whole matter. If she kept her eyes open she would still be in that musty diner, but if she closed them and thought back just hard enough, she was back to the earliest years of her life when the two Mercedes girls would sneak out to the treehouse at dusk and play a few rounds of blackjack before sunrise. Looking back at it, it seemed like she was looking at those days through a glass wall. She wasn't that little, brawny girl with pigtails anymore. In that period of time that had seemed so short, she'd gone from one of those, "little triplet kids", to, "that dike with the muscles on the lacrosse team". It was one of the saddest things in the world to her when she thought about it, but in the end, she really didn't want to make much of it _Things were a hell of a lot better back the-_

Those thoughts were ended when a shrill voice came screeching from outside:

"JESUS CHRIST, SOMEBODY FUCKING HELP ME!"

* * *

J.C Brooke (Girl #1) was running for her life. Weaving through the trees and feeling shots barely miss the top of her head, she couldn't help but wish to be dead. There would be such a relief to just get it over with and not have to deal with the anticipation of a bullet burying itself into her head's bony cradle. Trying as hard as she could to stay focused, but blurry-eyed from the forest that was spinning around her, she slid behind another tree to avoid another shot from her attacker's pistol. _Are you going to feel anything? Is it just going to be over? God damn it, why does it have to be like this?_

The figure behind her was overly muscular and running in an awkward stumble that didn't slow them down in any way. Ever since she'd run into them, they'd been relentless in their chase. Dashing through the sweltering jungle with the heavy Uzi slowing her down, she hadn't been prepared for somebody to have the nerve to ambush her in broad daylight. At first she'd tried to fight back (even firing off a few shots from her gun) but having never shot one in her life beforehand, the bullets didn't do much besides graze the trees.

They wanted her dead. It was strange thought, and given the circumstances, it should have been the last of her worries. But for some reason, it was all she could think about it. She pictured everybody viewing cheering like animals as she was gunned down on the big-screen, none of them even caring to do as much as spit on her brains. All she would be if she died was another statistic to put in the books alongside the rest of them. It was wrong. It was common sense in the first place, but it was beyond wrong. You didn't cheer for people to die. _Not even when the people might deserve it…_

"I didn't do anything wrong!" J.C screamed. "I…I was good! JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!"

But he didn't. His footsteps crunching through the leaves behind her, he fired off another shot that barely missed her left ear. Chills went through her entire body as she felt the wind whistle past it and the bullet imbed itself into a tree trunk. Sprinting faster with the ever growing realization that she had a charley horse in her left leg, she ducked behind another tree and shrouded herself into the darkness as best as she could. Feeling her heart thudding, J.C prayed for her life and struggled to reload the Uzi.

Things had gotten bad. There was no other way to put it. It was obvious that the game wasn't fair, but she felt it has been the harshest on her. Aside from being lit on fire and bruising up her arm, her opaque mind had drilled in a sense of hopelessness. Even if she tried to convince herself otherwise, she knew that there was no way she was going to survive for much longer. She was just a ghost running through the forest now. Instead of that silly girl who hid her troubles under mascara and hair dye and leeched off people, she was being seen for who she truly was: a frightened, insecure mess that had no one. The words repeated themselves in her head. _You have no one. You have no one. All your friends are dead. All of them. And Zane-_

The sound of rustling footsteps to her side snapped her out of her thoughts. Reacting on pure instinct, she sprung up and hoped that she'd caught her attacker by surprise. Leaping out into the darkness and into the boy's path, she swung her Uzi high over her head and smashed it hard into his face with a metallic clang that rattled his skull. For a bizarre second, J.C swore that she even saw a blinding light flash in the boy's eyes from the impact. Howling in a guttural scream, the boy fell back onto the ground and gazed up at her.

"Hurting…." the voice whined. For somebody so large, it was high-pitched like a child. "I'm hurting…."

With the sunlight shining over his face from the treetops and a clear view of him, J.C was finally able to figure out who it was. There was no mistaking that mature, aged face that belonged in college rather than high school and those strange-looking sideburns on his sweaty face. Or that childish gleam in his tired eyes. It was Darren Warner (Boy #20).

"I'm hurting", the boy said again. Then his voice was angrier. "I'M HURTING!"

Without warning, his beefy hand reached out and grabbed her ankle. Feeling pure reversion like she'd just been touched by a plague, goose bumps went up her legs as she shrieked and struggled to pry him off. Swinging back her free foot, she kicked him hard in the side of the chest and got a rewarding grunt out of him. Bringing her heel down again, she brought her sneaker down hard into his shoulder and got a strange popping sound like air breaking. Blood shone in the sunlight on her feet and fell off her shoelaces in red dots. Curling up into a ball, Darren howled miserably and for just a second, J.C couldn't help but feel a sick. _You're beating the shit out of a special ed kid. What the hell is wrong with you?_

Shaking the thought away, J.C ran away with her Uzi. Swatting out tree branches and vines in front of her, the sudden cracking of twigs behind her and sudden burst of footsteps told her that Darren had regained his footing and was probably going to catch up soon. Listening to the popping sound of his pistol firing another shot into a tree, she cursed and ran faster. _Jesus Christ, you're like one of those horror movie girls._

And it was true. She could deny it all she wanted, but it was almost a universal fact. She was nothing but that big-breasted, scatterbrained horror movie girl who ran screaming for half of the movie until she met her demise. And now, not even meeting the halfway mark, she was going to be picked off early.

There was a building up ahead. Lowered into a small hill and shaped into an alcove of a rectangle, it was a grimy-looking building with a wall of ivy growing up it on one side. A broken neon sign over it clearly said, "Maury's Diner" and a rusty Ford was parked into the left wall. But it wasn't the building itself that gave her a relief. It was what was standing in the doorway. A girl. Tall and muscular with dirty-blonde hair fluttering in the wind, it was hard to discern exactly who it was at first. But as she ran up closer, she was able to catch a better glimpse and see it was Prudence Mercedes (Girl #8). Although it was a miracle seeing someone coming to her rescue, the fact that the front of the girl's shirt was speckled in blood was a little unnerving.

"GET INSIDE!" Prudence screamed.

J.C didn't waste a second. Howling and nearly shoving the girl out of the way, she ran through the doorway and onto the waxed floor of the diner in an obscure belly slide. Behind her, she cringed as she got a fresh bruise from banging her shin on the side of the doorway.

"_Lord, we dont need another meadow,  
there are corn fields and wheat fields enough to grow…"_

There was music in the diner. It wasn't the hard kind J.C was used to though. If anything, it was the soft kind you would find buried in an antique store of records. It was one of those whiny 60's protest songs. Before she had a chance to even process the lyrics, she nearly jumped out of her skin from the booming sound of the shotgun that rattled from the doorway.

_RAT-A-TAT!_

Prudence was firing her shotgun out of the doorway with a look of sheer fury on her face. Even with a bandaged wrist, it was clear that her intense spirit hadn't been broken by the game. Firing the shots out in flaming sparks that almost made her see stars for a second, Prudence was relentless. Walking several feet outside the doorway, she shot wildly and sent blinding flickers of fire ricocheting out of the gun. Although she wasn't able to get much of a clear shot at Darren from the angle she was at, the rapid fire she was dishing out made it impossible for at least one shot not to make it.

"ERGHHHHH!"

Darren roared as one of the blasts from the shotgun blew a decent chunk of skin off from his left shoulder. Blood and the acidic strains of his muscle pumped through as he looked around like he had no clue where he was. For an odd second it looked like Prudence had succeeded in making him cry rather than physically hurting him. Cradling his left arm as blood trickled down it, he turned around and dashed back out into the woods. And then he was gone just as quickly as he'd come.

"_What the world needs now is love, sweet love…."_

It was definitely a protest song. There was no denying it now. With her heart still beating, J.C took a quick look at her surroundings. The diner reminded her of those abandoned places that most parents wouldn't want their kids stepping inside. Booths and tables littered the main room with a small, yellowed wall cut off for the kitchen behind swaying barnyard-doors. At the very end of the line of tables was a door that presumably led down to the cellar. Nails edged out all over the planked floor, practically taunting the idea of tetanus.

"God damn it…." Prudence sighed. "God damn it…."

The girl closed her eyes and started to slump down the doorway in exhaustion. She muttered something under her breath that J.C couldn't understand. This didn't stop her from opening her mouth.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" J.C said excitedly. "I mean, holy shit, you have no idea how scared I was out there. I'm really glad you found me because things have gotten really bad, and I need people to keep watch for me, y'know, cause' I really don't want to end up getting hurt agai-

"J.C", Prudence said calmly.

"Yeah?"

"Shut up".

Swearing under her breathe again, Prudence turned her attention to adjusting the strap of her shotgun. On a normal day back home J.C probably would have said something, maybe even dish out a few insults and let Prudence know what she really thought of her. But those days seemed long gone now. In the first time in a long time, J.C felt almost happy to be alive. Cringing as she sat up, she limped away from the doorway and down the aisle of booths. Halfway down, she caught sight of Sadie Mercedes (Girl #9) sitting alone at a table covered in playing cards. Staring down at the cards in her hand with a solemn look on her face, it looked to her like she hadn't wanted any part in the battle that had just went on. As she passed, Sadie looked up and gave her a nod. J.C took it as a hint and sat down.

"What game were we playing here?" she asked.

"We played blackjack for a little bit", Sadie replied. "We used all of these magnets we found in the kitchen as chips. But then the game just sort of died out and we built houses with the cards. You want to play a game?"

"Am I allowed to?'

"Prudence is the one that doesn't trust anyone", Sadie said. "I may not like you, but I trust you. You don't want to hurt us. In fact, most people out there don't want to hurt us, but try telling that to the girl with the shotgun over there".

"You should take a walk outside", J.C said with a grin. "Things aren't as great as you think".

"What? Have things been bad for you?"

"I've fallen down a mineshaft, sprained my arm, been fucking lit on fire, walked in on some girl shooting herself through the head and now I've just been chased into here by some maniac. So yeah, I'd say things could be a little better".

"Tough luck", Sadie said. "Things haven't been great around here either. You want to deal?"

"Maybe you should. I suck at shuffling cards".

"So I'll deal then…"

And so they dealt their cards, played their game and tried to take their mind off their worries.

* * *

Darren was hurt. It was a simple thought when there were thousands of others he should have been more concerned about, but it was the only thing that came to mind. The pain surged through his shoulder like a clock's hands spinning around at rapid speed. Sniffling into the dirt with his face wet with tears, he brought his hands up to his collar bone and brought back the red stuff. Glancing down at it shining in his fingers, he looked at it like he'd never seen anything like it before. But he knew it was bad. Real bad. If it kept up like this, he would never get to go home. Most importantly, he would never see her again.

There were bandages in the bathroom in his house. No the one up the stairs, but the down one. His mother kept them in an old jewelry box. If she was there, she would have put them on his shoulder and healed it up. And then she would have taken him to the car, just like she did every day after school, and driven him home. They would talk, and that was the best part, because she was the only one that could really understand him. She would make sense of all the strange people in school that he couldn't understand. She would make all the confusion go away. And then she'd hug him. Holding her tightly, he could almost smell the scent of her clothing: the scent of baby powder and home cooking.

"I want to go home…" Darren mumbled. His voice was uncertain at first, but was definite in a moment. "I want to go home".

It didn't make any sense. The man in the room before had told him to get rid of everyone else on the island. And after all, when people were so hard to understand, it was a relief to get rid of them. This would have been easy. But he'd already gotten two of them. The girl in that big hole and the football boy. And for some reason though, he wasn't anywhere close to home. _I did it wrong. What did I do wrong?_

Sniffling and not bothering to wipe away his tears, Darren grabbed the pistol and forced himself up from the ground. Staring out at the lights coming from the diner, part of him felt like he should have been walking toward it. But he didn't. He had to go out and do the dying if he ever wanted to get anywhere close to home. Thoughts scattered in his head, the boy walked onward with a plain, lobotomized expression on his face. _Gotta get on back…_

* * *

Terry Klingerman (Girl #6) couldn't help but feel apprehensive. No, apprehensive wasn't the right word. She couldn't help but feel terrified. Sitting in the middle of the engraved floor in the mansion's foyer, part of her felt like screaming her lungs out for all they were worth. Maybe if she did that, people would care to listen to what she was trying to say.

The mood in the mansion was awkward to say the least. After that half-assed speech Peter had thrown together, nothing had really happened besides a horrible feeling of tension building in the room. Some people were trying to ignore this, obviously not wanting to get anywhere near an argument if they didn't want to, but others seemed ready to fight at any minute. They were the ones that wanted control.

Terry sighed. She had never been a girl who wanted control. In fact, it had really been one of the very last things she'd ever wanted. Far from a leader, she'd planned to go through life standing in the background as a nameless face. It was odd, but being an outcast definitely had its perks when you wanted to be unnoticed. Upon her entrance to the program, she'd run into the battlefield with every intention of being cannon fodder and dropping out early. But she hadn't. With fate twisting itself around, she'd ended up living and surviving an entire day. If that wasn't destiny, she didn't know what was.

Destiny. That was an interesting thing. There hadn't been a night where she hadn't lain in bed and contemplated where she was going in life. If you asked anyone else in school, the answer would have been nowhere. Terry knew this was poor judgment on their part, especially since they didn't even know her. They'd judged her for stupid reasons too. Although having a pretty face, the wide array of medications Terry was under as well as poor personal hygiene had pretty much taken away every chance she had at having a social life. Frizzy-haired with wide eyes and acne, she looked more like an electrocuted poodle than a teenage girl. Rumors had started in every direction about her being a schizophrenic as well as a mass a murderer. _Ah well. So is life, I guess…._

It wasn't like she wanted a social life anyway. People needed to learn to love themselves before they went out and judged the hell out of other people. With people saw caught up in violent revolution and running in different directions, they never sat down and really thought about making peace and just loving themselves for who they were. It was more than worth it to give peace a chance. When she thought about it though, the theory didn't make her a great philosopher. If anything it made her a hypocrite. _You're a goddamn self-mutilator. Why are you telling other people to love themselves?_

Looking around the foyer, Terry took a quick inventory on everyone. Tristan, Zane, Travis and Luke were sitting on the steps of the winding staircase, playing what looked like a game of Egyptian ratscrew with a deck of cards they'd found. Zane was smoking a cigarette, the very last one they'd managed to find in the damn house. Roxy was sitting a few steps above them, watching the game with a mildly amused look on her face. Mitch was still sitting in that armchair, talking idly with Logan about whatever was on his mind. And considering it was Mitch, they were probably talking about a lot. _Things are getting better around here then. Not by much, but they're getting better…_

"Trying to make some kind of point by sitting alone?"

Terry glanced up and was met with a shock. Standing over her was a bemused smirk on his face was Peter Juntz (Boy #9). Wiry and muscular with his face smattered in eyeliner and a blonde wig to go with it, he wasn't the first person she would have wanted to have a conversation with it. The fact that he was planning on being dead that very evening almost made her feel like she wanted to be as distanced from him as possible. But at least he was another person. And a person with dreams at that. All through his speech, she couldn't help but wonder if his dreams were going to come crashing down on him.

"No", Terry said. "No, I'm fine…."

"That's good", Peter said. "I'm not going to force you into all of this if you don't want to. If you're just coming along for the ride, that's fine with me".

"Is that what you're really calling this?" Terry asked. "_A ride?_ Is this all some kind of adventure to you?"

"No', Peter replied. "It's actually hell, and to tell you the truth, I want it to end just as much as you do. But you have to make the best out of circumstances like this. Especially if you want to come out with your head still on your shoulders".

"Yeah", Terry said. "Yeah, I guess you do".

"That's the right attitude", Peter said with a smile. "So why are you over here anyway?"

"Just thinking", Terry said. "I think about a lot. My mind wanders sometimes. I guess you could call it a habit".

"Hey, it's good to have an open mind these days. I'd rather have you over here daydreaming then being over there and pretending like you're a team player".

"What do you mean?' Terry asked.

"Well, I like that you're different. Everyone else in school is worrying about homecoming or their parents smelling liquor on their breath when they get home on Friday nights, and all you want to do is sit down and think. The way things are going in the world, it's good to have a few daydreamers still around. Get some good ideas out there, y'know?"

"Yeah", Terry said. She didn't sound sure of herself. "Yeah, that's the right idea…."

Peter nodded and looked around the room for a second. He gazed at everyone in the foyer, scanning all of them with sniper's eyes. For a second, this unnerved her. With the way things were going, it was hard for her to not consider the idea of Peter being a sociopath, planning to manipulate them all and turn them against each other at the last minute. But when she took a good look at his eyes, his expression wasn't really that calculating. He just looked thoughtful.

"Hey everyone", he called. "I think we all want to get things rolling now. Can you all come over here?"

With varying levels of hesitance, the others all began to walk toward the center of the foyer. Some of them walked purposefully, sure that there was nothing to be frightened about, while others walked in the back with sour looks on their face. _Even if it's what Peter wants, there's no way we're all a team…._

"We're going to be setting things into motion soon", Peter explained. "But first things first. I think it's important to get this out of the way. From here on out, it's important to stick by each other. I don't want you to think I'm the leader here, because I'm not. We're all watching each other's backs and we're all leading the way out of here. You got it?"

There was scattered muttering in the group. Although a few of them didn't have much of a reaction, the majority seemed to agree with Peter's words. Getting the confidence he needed, he smiled and continued.

"We're going to split up into two groups now", he said. "One's going to be the scavengers; the other's going to be the diggers. The scavenger's are going to be the ones who go out and try to find more people to get in on this thing. If you find anyone who's willing to help out, you bring them back here. The diggers are going to be working at the bomb sight over at the school and dig out the pits for the chlorine and work on the path. So, I guess that's the first order of business. Any takers to go out and scavenge?"

"I'll go out", Tristan said. "I've been having cabin fever all day from staying near the school. I gotta get out and stretch my legs a little".

"Me too", Zane said. "I'm getting the hell out of here".

"Same here", Travis said eagerly. "Going to kick some ass, that's what I'm going to d-

"You're not going anywhere, bro", Tristan cut in. "That attitude is only going to get you killed out there. We're trying to save people, not start a massacre. Shut your mouth before I do it for you".

"So that's Tristan and Zane for scavenging", Peter said. "Anyone else up for it?"

"I'll head out too", Mitch said without looking up at anyone.

Terry couldn't help but feel even more apprehensive when Mitch volunteered to head out. Ever since the game started, even if they hadn't been heading in the right direction, she'd felt a sense of safety being in their group. Even when Risa's brains had splattered across the hut or Perry had been hanging from the barn's rafters, she'd felt like she was watching all of the suffering from far away. She was safe. And for once, being around other people was like a talisman to her. In school she'd been quiet, almost a complete social outcast, but this was one of the only times in her life when she felt a sense of belonging. Everybody had their role in the world. And like it or not, she was starting to find hers. Along with that, the idea of leaving Mitch to head out on his own wasn't that thrilling of a thought. _Who knows what's going to happen to you when they're all gone?_

"I'm going out too then", Terry said quickly. The remark felt strange for a second and she felt the need to add on. "Anybody else?"

"I'll do it", Roxy said. "I'd back you guys up any day of the week".

"So then that's Zane, Mitch, Terry, Roxy and Tristan heading out", Peter said. "and the rest of us for digging. Is everyone okay with that?"

"That's a load of bullshit", Travis complained. "I can fight just as good as the rest of you. And I've been digging that hole since the game started. I mean, do you guys just see me as a slave labor or something?"

"Better digging in a hole than dead in one", Luke snapped. "Get off your ass, grab a shovel and shut up. I'd rather be safe than out there fighting anyway".

For a second it looked like Travis infuriated enough to punch Luke in the face on the spot. And in the end, it probably wouldn't have been that difficult. Even though both of the boys weren't muscular and looked like they hardly went outside, Travis seemed to be continually zipping up his jeans when they snapped on his chubby belly. In one good body slam, it wouldn't have been that much of a problem knocking somebody like that wannabe-beach boy Luke Graystone to the ground. But it wasn't what he decided to do. Grumbling and looking at all of them with scowling eyes, Travis stared down at the floor and muttered something about, "bullshit", under his breath.

"And nothing's stopping you from going out, Travis", Peter said. "You can leave if you want. Just mull things over and decide if you're going out because you care about what happens to us or if you just want to see people bleed. And if you really want to get out there just to kill people, I don't care if you're Tristan's brother. I don't even care if you're my friend. Get out now".

Nobody moved or said anything. There was a strange stillness in the air, almost like they were all propped under intense stage lights. But then the moment passed just as quickly as it came.

"Anyway", Peter continued. "The diggers are going to be the ones that get the car".

"Shouldn't we take it?" Zane asked. "I mean, we're going to be the ones walking around the island…"

"The car's a piece of shit", Logan cut in. "I swear, I don't want to anything more right now than smash that thing to pieces. If you cruise that thing around the island one more time, it's going to run out of gas. It's better if we get it so we can go back and forth between the bomb sight and the mansion".

"So the mansion's going to be a rest stop?" Roxy asked.

"Sort of", Peter said. "Logan has the right idea. We're going to alternate between the scavengers and the diggers, so everyone's going to have to take the same risk as everyone else some time down the road. We're gonna trade off jobs in shifts. It's a fair share, I think".

"Why the hell shouldn't you go out and scavenge?" Travis growled. "Just because this was your idea doesn't mean-

"I'm the only one here that really knows how to blow those bastards to smithereens", Peter replied without a hint of anger in his voice. "I'll go out later, but I think it's important that everyone knows how to make the bomb before we do something that ruins everything we worked for. So if everyone goo-

"Wait".

It was a new voice. Not one in the crowd, but one more off to the side. Slightly confused for a second, it took everyone a moment to turn to the door to the room they'd been using as their makeshift infirmary. Standing in the doorway with her face a mess of oily ointments and dabbed cuts was Mare Ewing (Girl #3). Slightly dazed-looking from lying in bed and looking like she'd just woken up from a coma, she didn't look in particularly good fighting condition. Her locks of spiky-green hair were tattered and looked like she'd just been forced through an electric fan.

"I'm scavenging", Mare said. "Sign me up".

Despite being asleep, Mare had unknowingly generated the most conversation within the manor. A mystery considering she'd been dragged in caked in blood and nearly catatonic, there'd been more than few talks about her motives when she woke up.

"Mare, you can't do this", Roxy said. "You're a wreck".

"I'm fine, Roxy", Mare said quickly. "Just give me time to walk it off and I'll be fine. There's no way you guys are leaving me here".

"Oh, come on!" Travis practically howled. "This is just stupid! You guys don't let me go and you let some psycho bitch that's probably going to collapse the moment she walks outside go?"

"No one said we're letting her go", Peter said impatiently. "Mare, take a look in the mirror before you go out there. For all we know you could have over a hundred infections on just your mouth alone".

"Just give me a chance", Mare said. "Look, you act like there's a concrete wall between here and that room, but it's really not that thick. I've listened to what all of you have been saying. And even though I know there's nothing that can change your minds about me, I'm going out there and doing what I can to get us all out of this mess".

"This is stupid", Travis said. "This is the same reason you didn't let me go".

"No", Tristan said. "The reason we're not letting you go is because you're an idiot. At least she's not a stuck-up prick with delusions of killing people".

"For all we know she could have killed people", Travis shot back. "Doesn't that blood all over her before ring a bell to any of you?"

"Some stuff happened, alright?" Mare sighed. "And I didn't mean for things to turn out the way they did. I don't know if I can convince you, but don't leave me in here just because you don't trust me. I don't want to be in here sitting on that damn cot while there's a battle right outside the door".

"I can vouch for her", Roxy said quickly. "There's no way she'd give in to this game. She's telling the truth. And if you're all just going to keep on judging her and refuse to see the truth, you can just shut up. She's a good person and we need good people around here".

"Alright", Peter said. "If Mare wants to go, she goes. How's the weapon situation for you guys before you head out?"

"We've got a sniper rifle, a taser and a pistol", Zane said. "You guys want to take the grenades and the machete?"

"Fair enough", Peter said. "You guys are probably going to have more of a risk of running into trouble anyway".

There was a quick hustle in the manor of everyone quickly packing up their bags and checking the ammunition in their guns. With the clattering sound of pistol cartridges closing and the zipping of backpacks, the six scavengers of the escape crew began to walk toward the heavy, brass front doors. Having the scary fantasy of a funeral march as he watched it all, Zane quickly took the league with his sniper rifle loaded in his tired, battle-scarred arms. Gazing back at the line, he did a quick head count. _Mare. Mitch. Terry. Tristan. Roxy. Zane. That's six. And it's going to be six people when you come back. Don't let anything change that…_

Walking down the path to the door, they passed the anxious faces of everyone that was staying behind to dig. Although Logan offered a smile, there was no denying there was worry on her face. While he had been furious a moment ago, Travis now had a look of weariness on his face. As his brother passed him, he reached out and gave him a tight squeeze on the shoulder. It was a minor detail to pick out, but it was something that Zane noticed. Luke didn't have much of a reaction besides staring out at the door.

And then there was Peter. When Zane got a close look at him, he suddenly understood what he'd been saying about not being a leader. Looking into those worried eyes, it was clear that he was very far from everything a leader stood for. All he was was a person trying to keep his dreams alive before they died out completely. _Poor guy's like a ship with no captain…_

"Good luck out there", Peter said. "I mean it. I want you all coming back…"

"We'll do it", Mitch said. "Make sure you all keep your head above water".

"Roger".

Finally passing everyone, they reached the brass doors and Zane pushed them open. Considering how it was night the last time any of them had been outside, the sudden streams of sunlight peeking in startled nearly everyone in the foyer. It didn't stop any of them from walking though. Stepping out onto the stoop and holding the door open for Terry behind him, Zane couldn't help but feel a growing sense of dread. There was a strange stillness in the air between all of them, almost like they all knew something bad was going to happen. It was the feeling he got before he went and screamed at a protest back home. It was the feeling Tristan probably got before a big game. It was probably the feeling Roxy got before she stepped out onto the stage in the school play to sing the finale too.

It was the universal feeling of worry. It only lasted a moment, but he knew that everyone felt it.

But then the moment passed just as quickly as it came. The six of them all stood on the stoop with an unbearable sense of anxiety between them.

Then, forcing a smile and holstering his rifle over his shoulder in the front of the crowd, Zane spoke:

"Let's roll".

And so they set out.

* * *

**No Students Eliminated**

* * *

**23 Students Remaining**


	34. Day 2: Hour 32: 23 Students Remaining

The simplest things in life are sometimes the hardest to put into words. Trivial things happen every day in our lives, for better or worse. Some overlook them, some don't. It's really all a matter of if things are really as shallow as we think they are. It could even be said for the twenty-three remaining competitors that the principles of life were just as deep back home as they were on the island. It took so much thought to take things into perspective sometimes that most people just chose not to.

Lea Passington (Girl #11) wasn't someone who usually overlooked things. In fact, she analyzed everything she could get her hands on.

* * *

At around eight in the morning, she'd woken up in a clearing from what could only be described as a sleep from hell. There'd been nightmares, and a lot of them at that. Feeling that age-old sense of trying to recall her dreams, all she could remember were groggy snap-shots. Enrique with his brains spewed out like a piñata on that artificial grass. Meyerhold cradling his testicles after they had met her bolt cutters. And, in a memory much further away from the island, a girl screaming in the street as a man in a clerical outfit died in front of her. _Forget that._ _Get up. Let's get this show on the road…_

After quickly gathering up her newly christened first-aid kit and organizing her thoughts, she'd set off into the early morning. She'd only been on the island a day, but the consistent whirlwind of trees and winding trails seemed like something she'd known forever. This was her home now. And if it wasn't her home, it was her burial ground. And if she wanted to get out, the only real option was to keep going. _Look at this place. It's almost like its alive or something…._

But that was a stupid thought. And it was one that she'd abandoned quickly. After several minutes of stealthful running through the woods, she'd finally slowed down into a walk with her handsaw scraping into the dirt at her side like a walking stick and her new pistol cocked and ready in her other hand. And, if her thoughts had really been gathered back into the right place, that was where she was now. A lone wanderer. That was a good way to describe it. Taking a quick glance down at the saw, she couldn't help but grimace at her reflection in the metal blade. Never really a sight to look at, she looked more like a poster-child from a starving country. Her face was contorted from sleep deprivation, her hair greasy from mud, grime and sweat, and shuffling her shoulder, she felt a wave of pain sift in from her bullet wound. _Infection. That hurts. Your face doesn't matter though. It's not like you wake up and worry about how you look anyway. That's for the rest of them…._

Lea's mind rambled into circles, trying to latch onto something to think about. Memories of teachers and school life faded away, instead becoming the memories of whistling trees and the hiss of golf clubs smashing through the air. Trying to cling onto the days before the island, Lea found herself trying to think back as far as she could.

Her parents. Well, it had only seemed right to give her up really. Although they blamed it on financial reasons, the cold truth behind it was that neither of them had the first clue of how to raise a child. They loved her, that was a given, but most of the time they left her to her own devices. Most of Lea's childhood was spent sitting out on her screen-in porch reading or watching mind-numbing sitcoms in the den while her parents were out working. She'd lived, but she'd lived the bare minimum of what a child needed to survive. A façade of a life was probably the right way to describe it. It wouldn't do. And that was probably what led her parents to make the decision.

After barely five years of living with what she could loosely call her family, Lea was sent to live with her Auntie Pru down in a windswept, woodsy area of Oklahoma called Spanish Rivers. The town was small, and the fact that her aunt was known in town for being an eccentric recluse didn't make things any better. She would still see her parents on holidays, even on occasional weekends when they had time, but that didn't take anything away from the truth. _They'd given her up…_

But that was okay. If there was one thing Lea loved in the world, it was learning things. _Always did, always will. _On summer afternoons she'd walk to the library and take out as many books as she could with her library card. Then she'd run home with her arms piled high and throw them all out on her bed in a rumpled heap. As much as she wanted to read them right away, it seemed like a tradition to throw them there first and ruffle up her aunt's meticulously made bed sheets. And then she'd prop herself under the covers and read while her aunt smoked cigarettes downstairs in the parlor and played bridge with her book club.

Looking back at those days of cigarette-stinking houses and rumpled bed sheets, Lea couldn't help but shiver. It wasn't a bad relationship. She definitely had her flaws, but at heart, Lea's aunt was probably one of the kindest people in the world. She took her for walks sometimes in the late afternoon, often ending when they came home and sat in the parlor drinking ice teas together. The teas had been lukewarm, but that was the point. It was part of that bittersweet taste Lea knew differed with everyone's home. _The feeling of family. _Her aunt would take her to their church down in Delgado every weekend, and on those lucky Sunday nights, she would take her into the kitchen and teach her how to bake things.

But then there were the bad times, or as her auntie would call them, "the bumps". Lea really did like learning things. A lot. And in a house with crucifixes and biblical pictures decorating the wall, she couldn't help but feel sheltered. There was definitely more in the grand scheme of things. And she wanted to learn as much as she could. Sometimes when she closed her eyes, she could hear the conversations in her head.

_I'll put down the book, auntie. Please, I'll put it down. I'll even return it to the library. Just don't hit me._

_What is it, Lea? Answer me!_

_It's….it's a….a….I got it from the library. It's this big encyclopedia. It's called....A World of Hope by Jeanne Garton. It's about all of these different faiths around the world. I just thought it would be interesting. I mean, for all we know Jesus might….well….you know. He might not really be there. There's….there's a section about Judaism and another one over here about Islam and-_

_So that's it? Reading some jewbook, is that what you're doing? Reading bout' a bunch of Christ killers? Is that what you're doing, Lea?"_

_No auntie. I…I guess I'm not…_

_Give me that book, Lea. Get washed up for dinner and don't let me catch you reading about that garbage again. It'll put holes in your head._

And that was when the bumps began. She would hit her. Not often, but with Lea's tendency to open her mouth and blurt out things her aunt was more than a little touchy about, she definitely ended up with a few bruises to show. It wasn't that her aunt was a bad person. Lea loved her, of course. It was just that after she lost her husband, she just seemed to believe that God was the only person left that cared about her.

And that was how it started. Fed up with her aunt's beliefs and more than a little confidant that they weren't true, Lea spent most of her time at the library. She read up on religion, finding so many loopholes and plot holes in the Bible that her eyes started to blur. True, she made up some of them and a lot of them were just conclusions, but there was no denying religion was just a way to frighten people of the real menace in the world: death. Death had that haunting sense of being everywhere. In the street on the way to the church. Out on her aunt's porch with those lukewarm glasses of ice tea. _And now on this island…._

Lea shambled through the woods with her handsaw. She'd been carrying it for awhile, and feeling that sweaty grip, she had the strange feeling that it had become part of her. But it hadn't. It was just a tool, and a good one at that. Her gun was cocked and ready, her bolt cutters slung over her back like some kind of murderous construction worker. The early morning air was cool, brushing past her cheeks as she trudged down the trail. _This was the good time of day. Get a good book and sit down on the back porch with a glass of ice tea. Then you could go the library. And after the-_

There was something coming into her view on the ground. At first glance it resembled a sandbox torn out of the earth, but as she got closer, she finally realized what it was. It was a mine shaft. There was splintered wood around it, and by the look of it, somebody had tumbled down it earlier. A little unnerved, Lea bent over and sniffed the air, expecting to find the rising stench of some corpse at the bottom. She didn't.

"_You can't afford another fight right now"_, she thought. _"Better to stay low. Keep away from everyone else. A glass wall or something…"_

It was easy, after all, to live behind a glass wall. You became an observer to the world, watching problems churn and turn but feeling a lifetime away from them. You maintained a sense that you were better than other people, watching them go about their daily routines and run in circles. _Weeds, that's what they all are…._

Lea descended down into the shaft.

* * *

The sky above the island was overcast. Although the morning had promised to be sunny only hours ago, a scourge of humidity had suddenly caked the island in a damp wave. As the escape crew walked through the woods, gnats buzzed around irritably and bit at their mud-caked sneakers. Every so often they would have to hitch up the collars of their shirts just to wipe off sweat. Daily weather back in Oklahoma was one thing, but tropical weather was just a mystery on its own. It didn't seem to have any real pattern besides having the plain willingness to piss them off.

"I swear", Mare Ewing (Girl #3) said as she swat at a gnat by her face. "I swear to God man, if I ever get out of here, I'm not going to rest until I have this island nuked and wiped off the face of the earth".

"What's wrong?" Tristan Igolovosky (Boy #8) asked. "Spring weather getting to you?".

They were walking this way: Mare, Tristan, Roxy, Mitch, Terry and finally Zane bringing up the rear with his rifle slung over his shoulder and his eyes locked forward. There'd been scattered conversation since their scavenging mission had begun, but as time wore on, things couldn't have become clearer. They were a group of misfits from every clique the school had to offer. All of them walked different lives. Just between them there was a jock, a criminal and a theatre kid and that wasn't counting the other recluses they had that had gone off to the bomb sight. _Throw in a few more nerds and valley girls and we could all be in a John Hughes movie together…_

"I can take weather sometimes", Mare said finally. "Even the humid kind. I'm all for weather but these flies that come with it are too much. I mean, they say God made all of the animals for a reason, but I can't find a purpose these fuckers could have in the world".

"They're called gnats", Roxy Patterson (Girl #12) responded. "They're part of the food-chain. They eat a lot of plants. It's a big cycle".

For some reason her comment seemed to quiet everyone down. She waited for a second for anyone to say something, but all she got was silence. She'd really shut them all up. It felt strange to her, and what felt even stranger was that she was walking on a march with a hoard of people she'd mostly never spoken to before. It was weird to say the least.

In school, nobody really noticed her because she was quiet and had a way of blending in with the crowd. She wasn't really that pretty either with a page-boy haircut and wide, spaced-out eyes, but she'd convinced herself that she was far from ugly. And there was no way she was going to force herself into being one of those glamour-struck girls that spent hours obsessing over their faults in a mirror. In the grand scheme of things, it helped thinking that what God hadn't given her in looks he'd given her in heart. She was a good girl. Well, at least she thought she was…

The drama club had been fun for awhile. Since she was in elementary school, Roxy had always felt like the stage was calling her name. If you weren't happy with yourself, there was no greater feeling in the world than being able to lose yourself in those harsh spotlights and slip into a new mind and body. You could pretend to be a new person and nobody would care. Plain and simple, that was acting to her. And it was why she'd had such a great time.

But it hadn't lasted long. Performances had sped by fast, and after awhile, it had just become too demanding. Forced up at the crack of dawn by her ever-smiling parents, it only seemed commonplace that she would be ending up on Broadway one day. After all, she'd won that televised youth recital back when she was three and she could carry a tune just fine. With a few good connections, it wouldn't be hard to find somebody that would let her worm her way into some out-of-the-way production. _That was your future, girl. That's really all mom and dad had planned for you, isn't it? They didn't care about you. All they cared about was if your voice didn't crack in the finale…._

But her future was gone now. The Battle Royale had taken her chances of being on the Great White Way and crushed them. If her parents were there she probably would have sobbed up some fake tears for them, but with them gone, she couldn't help but feel glad. Instead of everyone seeing her as the characters that she played on stage, they could finally see her as Roxy Patterson. After all, shuffled from role to role and having no choice but to stretch her expression on stage every night, she'd played so many characters that she ended up forgetting who she really was. It was easy to become someone else on stage, but in the end, it didn't give you anything if you wanted to have a decent outlook on yourself. _You're a good girl. That's what you are. If anything still makes sense out here, you might as well try to do some good now…._

She looked up at the others. They were all walking in a single-file line, and by the look of it, none of them were talking. It was an eerie silence, almost like they were all going on a funeral march. She wanted to say something, but there was that gnawing truth that no one would care to listen.

Gazing up the line, Roxy watched as Mare's spiky, green locks bounced in the air. Taking a good look at her, she couldn't help but feel a little bit better. Mare was a good friend when it came down to it. Maybe even one of the best in the world. Although she wasn't one of the easiest people to talk to in the world, they both shared the same cynical, scatterbrained sense of humor that had made them close friends. The two of them walked to the beat of two very different drums (Mare being a reputable criminal while Roxy was a mild-mannered drama girl) but the friendship had still come despite everything that had crossed its path. And it had stayed too. There'd been nights when they stood up, talking and giggling on the phone under their covers, sometimes even until the sun came up. But then there were the parts of the relationship that Roxy could deal without. _The fact that you couldn't make her quit those damn cigarettes. The fact that you couldn't get her to stop stealing. The fact that you couldn't make your parents agree to inviting her over to dinner because of that funny look in her eyes and the fear that she might pocket something when they weren't looking. Thank god the drama club brought us together…._

"Things are pretty lively around here, aren't they?" Roxy said with a grin as she walked up beside her

"Yeah", Mare said. "Pretty happy bunch. Sorry we didn't get a chance to talk earlier. How've you been holding up, Roxy?"

"A few issues here and there, but I'm good".

Mare grinned. "The front of your shirt is completely covered in blood".

"Okay, things have pretty much been awful", Roxy sighed. "Still, you got to look on the bright side".

"I guess you do. I've been thinking the same thing, but it pretty much falls apart every time when I really think it over. I'm just going along to get along, y'know?"

"You really think that would work?"

"Well", Mare said. "What do we have to lose in situations like this?"

"How about our lives? No offense girl, but that's a pretty stupid attitude to have".

She waited for Mare to say something else but she didn't. She just kept walking, humming some old song to herself that Roxy couldn't quite place her finger on. _It was important to stay positive. Or at least pretend to. It has to be. It's what you've been doing your whole life…_

"Anyone got a cigarette?" Tristan said suddenly.

"No", Roxy said. "My grandpa died from lung cancer. I've never had a cigarette in my life".

"I try not to smoke too often", Terry called from further back. "But don't you think you should cut back, Tristan? I mean, you've had a lot".

"Ah, screw it", Tristan sighed. "There's no such thing as a good-tasting smoke out here anyway. It's too hard to stop thinking about everything".

"Here", Mare said as she reached into her pocket. "I only have one left but I've had a lot too. And they really haven't helped me at all. Take it".

She withdrew a beaten-looking box of Camels and tossed it over to Tristan. He caught it with fumbling fingers before reaching into his own pocket and pulling out a lighter. He lit it hastily and took in a deep drag as he threw the empty carton and stepped on it. The smoke billowed out of his mouth like some kind of train whistle.

"Thanks Mare", he said. "So does anyone have any idea of who we're supposed to be looking for?"

"Peter said go out and scavenge", Mitch said. "We need more people if we want to get this fire going. So anyone we trust, I guess".

"Well, my list is short then", Tristan said. "No one I knew really came into the game. I knew Winston a little. Me and the guys used to play baseball down at the Ridgedale field after school and he used to drop by. He may not have talked much, but damn, that guy was a tank. He hit the ball so hard the crack hurt your ears. But… well…he's dead now…"

"My list is pretty short now", Zane said from the back. "Almost everyone I could have called a friend is dead"

"Maybe that's the point", Terry said. "I mean, they wanted us to kill each other. There's money riding on this thing, and as much as they get kicks out of watching us wipe out our friends, I don't think this game would get anywhere if we were all really close with each other. They need to even things out so they throw in a few strangers, a few close friends, and then they let us have a go each other".

"Yeah", Mitch said. He felt the need to say something else, but really couldn't find anything. "Yeah, I guess they do".

Things loosened up as they got deeper into the trail. There was a grim silence after Terry's comment, but that died out rather quickly. They started talking about school, which opened up to joking around about teachers, which eventually opened up into any funny stories anyone knew. Zane told the bizarre tale of the night he and his friends had broken into that abandoned village, which frightened the group just as much as it amused them. Mitch told a hoard of sick jokes he'd learned mainly from Adam that got everyone in stitches.

Tristan told them all about an ill-fated night involving a hockey teammate by the name of Chad Dante. A known party animal and even more of a known idiot, Chad hadn't stopped a broken leg during the championship game from letting him go to the celebration afterwards at Amber's house. Coming directly from the emergency in a wheelchair late at night, he'd been more than welcome by his teammates seeing how the shot that had broken his leg had also been the shot that won the game. After getting fairly drunk, he lost all common sense and took a cigarette despite the fact that the bandages on his leg was covered in highly flammable ointment. Wheeling himself over to Leana Devora, he tried pulling his moves on her just as ash fell down from the cigarette and landed on his leg cast. In an instant, everything below Chad's waist was engulfed in flames and he had to be wheeled into the pool by his friends.

"You guys got him out though, right?" Mare asked with a grin. There were still tears of laughter in her eyes.

"Yeah, he was fine", Tristan said with a grin. "He did have to go the emergency room again after, but we wheeled him into the pool quick enough for the fire not to get bad. He's always saying that Leana made out with after because she felt bad about everything after, but I don't believe it since it wasn't even close to her fault. Chad's an asshole anyway".

"He's not that bad", Terry said. "I mean, there were people in school who were a lot harder to deal with. People like Arthur Lauris or Chris Barris-

"We better not speak ill of the dead", Tristan warned. "But yeah, I can't say anyone's going to be tearing up over Chris being gone. I try not to talk about other people a lot. I mean, some people deserve it, especially if they come into a party with their mind set on getting into someone's pants and then light themselves on fire, but I think everyone's the way they are for a reason. Our family, they're the ones that make us the way we are".

"My parents love me, I think", Roxy said suddenly. Everyone turned to her and she felt her face go red. "Well, at least I think so. They care about and everything, but sometimes I wonder if they'd still love me if something bad happened and I couldn't act anymore. They lived for getting me under that spotlight…"

"They just wanted to see you do well", Mitch said. "Sometimes our parents will make us unhappy as long as it steers us in the right direction…."

"I don't believe in family", Zane said. "I believe in love, but I don't believe in family. I think it's something that you're born to get away from".

"You really think that?" Mitch asked. "You really think that your family has no impact on your life?"

"Well", Zane began. "they impact your life, sure, but I see them as something that you just have to deal with. It's like high school if you think about it. You have to go along to get along".

"I like high school", Tristan said thoughtfully. "I think its fun".

"That's because you're the kind of kid the school worships", Mare said with a smirk. "Everyone loves you just because you can knock a puck around on ice and you're good-looking".

"My brother looks exactly like me", Tristan laughed. "You don't see girls asking for his phone number".

"Well, that's like you said before", Terry said. "You're different people. Everyone's different if you think about it, and even if you came from the same family, the smallest thing could have set you guys apart".

"And that's life", Roxy said dully. "You gotta learn to deal with it".

"I guess you do", Tristan said. The subject felt touchy, almost like territory that he knew shouldn't have been ventured into in the first place. They needed to go back to safer ground. "Any of you guys got any more stories to tell?"

"I'm fresh out", Mitch said with a yawn. "Anyone else?"

"How about we just ask a question?" Terry said. "What kind of music are you guys into?"

As they tended to, one question became another until they were going back and forth with them. The inquiries varied from what they planned to do after high school and what their favorite movie was to which teachers pissed them off the most. After awhile the questions flowed out easily, almost to the point where they could have been a group of friends walking on a weekend together just cracking jokes, knowing the whole time that the rest of them would be laughing no matter what. The sun even came out after awhile, and with its rays beaming down through the trees, the whole image of a death island almost became a mirage. Some kind of pretend-game, maybe. But the whole time, that couldn't be farther from the truth. There was no shaking away the fact that in forty hours, all of them had the decent chance of being dead.

"Next question", Roxy said with a grin. "Who'd you have a crush on at our school?"

"You guys have to promise you won't laugh", Mitch said.

"Only if it's Amber Prescott", Terry laughed. But there was a strange waver in her voice, almost like she didn't want to hear what he had to say. The laugh really didn't seem real.

"Just say it", Tristan said. He'd finally put out his cigarette.

"Fine", Mitch said. "Up until she started coating herself in make-up, I liked Erin".

"No offense, but it's best to not go near that girl", Tristan warned. "That is, if you're thinking about the same Erin Thompson I am. She's been with half the guys in school, and maybe even a few girls. She probably has every disease known to God".

"I said I liked her", Mitch said. "I'm not crazy about her now. She was prettier when she wore less make-up. I like girls who have a more natural look to them. It's just awkward if they have anything else. It's like they're wearing a mask or something".

"I use a lot of make-up sometimes", Mare said. "Bu-

Her words were cut off when the world suddenly caved in around her. The others gasped and drew back as splintered wood littered her feet. With the earth almost looking like it was trying to suck her in, Mare shrieked and stumbled backwards, stumbling out of the newfound pit on the ground and then falling back flat on her ass. A dark sandbox of a hole had belched out of the ground in front of her.

"MOTHERFUCKER!" Mare screamed. "SON OF A BITCH!"

The others approached the hole cautiously as she scrambled to her feet. Plywood boards had been covering it, almost like some kind of trapdoor designed to snatch them up. But the wood was badly decayed and what seemed like an eternity of forest rust was covering it. Gathering around the hole, they peered down it for an uncomfortable moment.

"It's some kind of shaft", Mitch said. "It looks like it goes right down to the center of the earth".

"No shit it's a shaft", Tristan said. "but what's it doing here?'

"Oh", Terry said suddenly. "So that's what all of those red lines were".

She didn't answer the confused stare the others gave her. Instead, reaching into the pocket of her sleeve-frayed windbreaker, she pulled out a slightly worn map marked with coordinates. The danger zones and times were scribbled on the back in untidy red scrawl. Kneeling down onto the ground, she rolled out the map and traced her finger across it.

"We're right here", Terry said. "and the lines are all around us. I can't believe I didn't get them earlier".

She pointed her finger to dotted red lines that were circling and intertwining across the map. Some of them went through buildings, others through the forest, but most of them just seemed to criss-cross the island with no clear sense of direction. With fingernails that hadn't been cut in awhile, Terry traced her finger on one of the line's paths until she reached an abrupt end.

"I think we're here", she concluded. "and if I'm right, the lines are mine shafts. There's a whole series of tunnels under this island. There's six, I think. One here, and in the barn, and in the diner, and near the northern shore, and another off near the bog and-

"And they probably opened them just for this game", Mare concluded. "It's a trap. There's no way we're going down there".

"I'm with Mare", Roxy said. "It's just what they want us to do. It's probably a trick or something".

"We didn't say anything about going down there", Zane said. "But we should really think things over. I mean, think about it. If we stay up here, the odds are we're going to run into someone eventually. No one wants to fight if we don't have to. But if we go down there, we can easily get from one side of the island to the other. It'll be a lot easier to figure out where everyone is".

"We all have flashlights too", Tristan said. "I say we go down".

"You're all crazy", Mare cried. "I mean, don't you think there's something a little off about all of this?"

"I think it's the right strategy", Mitch said. "I'll go down".

"Mitch", Terry said quietly. "You're not serious about this are you?"

"It may not look like it, but I think we're safer down there, Terry. We'll be underground, we'll have flashlights, and if we're lucky, no one's going to see us".

"When you put it that way", Roxy said. "I think I'm going down too. I really don't see anything wrong with this. It'll be a hell of a lot easier to get to the other side of the island without any hills or anything".

"It's a long fall, you know", Mare said. "Are you guys planning to jump?"

"There's a ladder", Zane said with a grin. "It's carved into the stone. But go ahead, you're welcome to jump if you want. Anyway, as much as you girls don't want to, majority wins. Let's head on down".

"I don't like this", Terry said softly. "I don't like this at all".

And she didn't. She really didn't. Gazing down that mine shaft, Terry remembered ancient fairy tales about trolls being under bridges and awful things in the forest. They were all associated with the dark. From the get-go, the dark where you were meant to venture. Along with that, she felt a force. It was a strange one that probably existed on the same level as tarot cards and talismans, but a force nonetheless. It was every bit of common sense that remained in the universe, begging her not to go down. Even when it was her turn, the force still wasn't gone.

And so one by one, all with varying levels of hesitance, they made what was quite possibly their biggest mistake yet and descended to the cavernous deaths of whatever lay beneath the island.

* * *

The mine shaft was surprisingly cool. As they descended down, the smell of the pine trees outside became the acrid smell of age-old motor oil, sawdust and whatever else had gathered in the shaft over the last millennium. The makeshift ladder carved into the earth was rough, and a few times they nearly slipped, only saved by the head of the person under them keeping them from plummeting to their death. Their flashlights were tucked under their arms as they scaled their way down, giving them the odd feeling of spelunking. Graffiti was littering the ladder passage, some vulgar, some just distorted faces and untidy scrawls of names and conspiracies that stretched around the whole passage. One phrase stuck out in harsh, red paint:

"Stand up and fight the pigs", Mitch read out loud. "We gave away the Panama Canal to the communist niggers".

"People on Cuna Cielo", Mare said dully. "Have too much time on their hands".

After a climb that seemed forever but must have only been two or three minutes, they safely reached the cold, hard earth at the bottom of the shaft. Now that they were at the bottom, the graffiti was in a much greater number, almost like they'd just walked into an art gallery. On the ceiling in bright green paint were the words, "WILD SEVEN LIVES!!!" A little lower from it, on the left wall in faded bubble-letters was, "CURTIS REZ WAS HERE, FAGGOTS". It gave them all a cryptic sense of place. They really did feel like they were going down to the center of the earth.

"Everyone here?" Mitch asked.

"I think we're good", Zane said. "No one turn off your flashlights. We need all the light we can get in here. Everyone ready to move out?"

No one answered, but like they were all reading each other's minds, they set off quickly and would have been swallowed up by the darkness if it weren't for their flashlights. Wooden support pillars lined the shaft as they walked, giving the whole place the eerie feeling of a tomb. Although they were going in a straight line, they had the omnipresent feeling that they were going deeper and deeper underground at every step. Every so often they would reach a corner, and after a hasty moment where everyone tried to reassure themselves they knew where they were going, they kept on course. Corners eventually turned into low-ceilinged passageways that turned into dead ends. Every so often they would have to consult the map, and every so often they would stop completely, unsure of where to go next but still keeping that foreboding silence in the air.

This routine seemed to continue for hours. No one had any real clue of how long they were really down there. Nobody spoke. What they did know though, was that Terry was the first to break the silence.

"This doesn't feel right", she said. She was trying not to lose control, but it was getting harder and harder every second. "Look guys, let's just turn back. I really don't feel right about this".

"Are you kidding?" Tristan said. "This place is a maze. It's hard enough to find our way through. Imagine trying to get back. I feel like a mouse in here".

"Call me crazy, but you seemed pretty eager back there to come down", Mare said. "Terry's right, this was a stupid idea".

"So this is my fault then?" Tristan snapped. "The fact that I wanted to find the quickest route to finish this fucked-up mission is the reason we're here?"

"Hey, you can't talk to her like that", Terry said. "You guys were all for this, and if something goes wrong, you should take responsibility for what happened. It's the only the right thing to do for Christ's sake!"

"So you're blaming this on me then?" Tristan spat. "Seriously, you're blaming this fucking rat-maze mess on me?"

"You know what, Tristan?" Mitch cut in. "Maybe she is. Shut up and get working on that scholarship of yours. Terry didn't do anything to you".

"Hey, fuck you. You can't say that to me. You hardly know me, man. Why are you guys calling me out on stuff when you don't even know me. A few minutes ago I could have called half of you guys my friends, but if you're all just going to turn against me-

"We are cool with each other", Mitch shot back. "I'm just pissed okay! I'm tired of all of this shit and I can hardly breathe down here!"

"Shut up, Tristan", Roxy sighed. "Please, just shut up. You sound like an idiot. And no one's calling you out. You're just overacting".

"Chill out guys", Zane said. "Just-

"Hey".

It was a quiet voice; it wasn't the least bit menacing but it wasn't soothing either. Roxy was eerily reminded of calliope music, the kind they played on carousels that was just as cheerful as it was unnerving. There was a mad scramble for flashlights that lasted only a few seconds, and with light flickering around the tunnel, a small face suddenly shone out from the darkness.

Standing in front of them was the tiny figure of Lea Passington (Girl #11). Short and freckly with furrowed eyebrows and a head of greasy, dark brown hair, she was the kind of girl that was clearly better left alone_. _From what seemed like the dawn of time, Lea had been situated at the bottom of high school's cruel, brutal hierarchy. And at the very bottom of the social ladder, there wasn't much room for climbing up. _Canis canem, that was the phrase for it. Dog eat dog._ The idea of meeting another person in the underground sanctum was so strange that all six of the scavengers could only stare out in awe. The tension between the two sides was tense, and at any second, something was bound to happen. The question was what.

Tristan's eyes widened. "Zane, shoot he-

It all happened so fast. Like a natural reflex, Lea's hand rose up from her side with a pistol that glinted in the darkness. She stood there for a second like an old gunslinger in a classic western, but that only lasted for a moment. She pulled the trigger and the deafening crack of gunfire rang out through the shaft. What followed could only be described as a scream of complete agony:

"MY ARM!" Roxy squealed. "MY ARRRRMM! IT HUUUUUURTS!"

With the dim light of flashlights in the dark cavern, the others were only able to see bright red bubbling out from Roxy's arm. A major vein had been hit, and in the gritty luminance of their flashlights, they could see shining blood spit out of the wound and all over the floor of the shaft. It wasn't long before it started to spray out everywhere; speckling their sneakers and making it look like a hard day's painting. Gun smoke filled the air. Flashlights clattered to the floor. Somebody screamed.

"MY ARRRRMMMMMM!"

The shock of the attack was what took the most toll on everyone. After going down into the shaft to avoid everyone, the idea of finding another person down there was almost laughable. And to make matters worse, it had to be a person that wanted to kill them. With the situation dawning on them, everyone's reaction was different. Zane stumbled backwards, struggling to tear his rifle's trap off his shoulder. Mitch reached for his belt and grabbed the pistol, aiming it at Lea and preparing to fire at any second. Terry and Tristan stood there and watched everything with shocked faces like they'd lost control long ago. Mare collapsed to the ground beside her friend in a second, screaming at the top of her lungs but not making any coherent words. And then there was Roxy herself, sprawled out on the ground and blubbering in her blood and tears.

_KER-CLANG!_

Another gunshot. Raising the pistol in the air like she was kicking off a track race, Lea shot at the beam of the support pillar and sent a saw dusty mist sprinkling down on them. It didn't seem to have much of a purpose besides wearing away at the aged wood. With an unreadable expression on her face, Lea quickly backed up into the darkness, kneeling down and trying to use the playing field to her advantage. Her eyes flickered in the mine shaft, the cold, marble-slits of a cat. _She's getting away. She shot her point-blank, in front of all of us, and we're just standing here and letting her back_ off. _What the hell is that about?_

"COME BACK HERE!" Zane screamed. "GET THE FUCK BACK HERE!"

Cocking his rifle and not giving a shit that it wasn't meant for close combat, Zane rushed forward and aimed the gun out toward where he'd last seen Lea. The eyes had vanished, but there was no mistaking that quick, metal glint of her handsaw that she just didn't seem to have the common sense to drop. His heart was beating, and for a moment, he thought it was going to burst right out of his chest, or maybe even just stop altogether. There wasn't much light besides the flashlights behind him, but he didn't need much. _A headshot, that's all you need._ Beads of sweat dripped down from his forehead as he scanned his view with sniper's eyes for a clean shot.

"I'm here", another voice said. "I'm…I'm here".

Mitch was at his side with his pistol. He was holding a flashlight in his trembling hands, scanning the darkness in complete terror like some kind of shell-shocked rent-a-cop. His face was scrunched up and his eyes kept closing, almost like he was trying to make everything go away. _And it will go away. You can make it go away, Zane. It just happened, it always happens, but you can fix it. Good things turn bad, but you can fix it right up. God damn it, we can take her. She's only one person. Don't be so scared…._

"Come on you stupid bitch", Zane spat out into the blackness. He was terrified and for once he wasn't afraid to let it show. "Come out and fight….."

He fired.

* * *

It was all happening so fast. With her reflexes lost, the flashlight of Terry Klingerman (Girl #6) fell to the ground and lit up a portion of the shaft's floor in a shaded arc. The flashlight rolled back and forth before settling on the ground, acting like a floor-level spotlight to what was happening. _Center-stage, huh? Jesus Christ, this is so awful. And it's not fake or anything. It's really going on…._

Terry backed up into the wall, feeling two-sided by the whole thing and also feeling at any second that a bullet could pop her in the head and end her life as a victim of cross-fire. Instead she backed up like a statue against the shaft, wishing the wall would swallow her up and take her away forever. The mainstream wasn't where she should have been. It really wasn't. All her life, she'd been sidelined, backed up against the wall as she was right now. It was a good place to be in high school, especially when you planned on living high school as a complete outcast, but it was different when the principles of dying on an island came into the picture. You could fight. You could run. Or you could die. The choice was yours. _How much do you care about people, Terry? How much do you care? You care a lot, dontcha? Thinking about destiny, aren't ya?_

Squinting out into the darkness, she made out the shadowy figures of Mitch and Zane fighting off Lea. It was a lost cause, seeing as how none of them could get a clear shot in the darkened mineshaft, and it seemed to be more of a game of chance with which side could shoot the other in a blind roulette. A bullet from Lea's pistol shot out from the depths of the shaft like the darkness had belched it out, grazing across Mitch's cheeks and spitting out dots of blood. He howled and fired a shot from his own pistol that rattled his skinny body. Unless either side worked up the courage to confront the other first, the battle didn't seem to be getting anywhere.

"MY ARRRRMMMM!"

There was the scream again. Terry's eyes narrowed down to the bloody mess on the ground, only dimly illuminated by the flashlights that everyone had dropped in the heat of the moment. Roxy was slumped against the corner, shaking convulsively with her arm looking like it had been deflated. Her mouth was pulled back into a grimace, but besides that, she looked relatively peaceful. Mare was holding a flashlight over the wound, swearing and struggling to wrap a makeshift bandage she'd torn off from the sleeve of her shirt. Her arms were completely drenched in her friend's blood, but this didn't seem to be something she could see. She just kept screaming and screaming.

_You could fight, you know. You could definitely help out. You don't have a weapon, but maybe you could just charge her. She's small and-_

A body backed up against the wall next to her, narrowly avoiding the whistling sound of a gunshot. Turning to the side, Terry squinted in the dark and tried to get the closest sense she could of who the person was. It was definitely a boy, pretty muscular, with an old-fashioned schoolboy cut of bushy, red hair. And only one person fit that description

"Terry? Is that you?" Tristan whispered.

"Yeah, Tristan it's me".

"I'm…I'm going to try and help the others", he said. He paused for a second. "Look, one of us needs to make sure everyone else gets out of here. Listen, you have the map. And you have the brains to do this. Run. Run and don't stomp until you get back to the ladder. Tear off the corners from the map and drop them as you get to the end. Make a trail so we can find our way back. If you see anyone, don't just stand there. Fucking run for it. You got it?"

"Like a fairy tale", Terry said. The part seemed dreamy to her, almost otherworldly. "When I drop the scraps so we can find our way back, it's like a fairy tale…"

"Right", Tristan said. "Like a fairy tale. You got it?"

"Yeah, I got it".

"Good, we'll see you soon. Get the job done, Terry".

And then he was gone, swallowed up by the darkness and running in the direction of the gunfire. She stood there for a second, instinctively brushing her fingers over the lump that the map made in the pocket of her windbreaker. She dug in and pulled it out, tucking it under her arm but feeling like her feet were disconnected somehow, not-working. She bent down and picked up the flashlight she'd dropped, flashing faint blue light out around the shaft. For a second she considered shining the bulb over toward Roxy, maybe to see just how bad it was, but she couldn't. She was too scared. _You don't have to leave. You could stay and fight. You could and you know it, so why don't you just do it?_

She didn't know why she couldn't. The simplest things in life really were the hardest to put into words. A lot of things were like that. People overlooked things, never really taking a good glance around to realize that things were at the verge of falling apart. And then there was the violent revolution the world had been thrown into and the people that had started it. You could read about all of that every morning in the newspaper if you chose to. There hadn't been a single night when Terry hadn't lay awake in bed, just thinking about things like this.

She tore a piece from the map and let it flutter to the ground. _Please God…_

And then Terry somehow found the courage to start running.

* * *

It was over. She was dying.

Roxy Patterson (Girl #12) felt like she was strapped to an operating table, spared any kind of numbing anesthetic and kept awake for the whole procedure. She couldn't see, but when you really looked at it, that didn't mean anything. She could feel the soft trickling from her arm as blood poured out, the pain wearing away off slowly as she drifted into shock. She could hear the sound of gunshots behind her. Seeing meant absolutely nothing. In a way, it was better to die in the darkness.

"Hang in there Roxy, you're gonna make it".

Someone was sitting above her. Mare by the sound of it. She was wrapping some kind of cloth around her leg, but with the massive amount of blood she was losing, Roxy couldn't see what it could do. Common sense was drifting away, loose thoughts and memories replacing it. She thought about a lot: Christmases she'd spent at her grandmother's house, plays that she'd seen with her family, sitcoms she'd watched on TV and even ancient commercials that she hadn't thought of in years. Then she heard her mother's voice. _Roxy, what are you doing? Get back inside and get changed. You have dress rehearsal tonight and I'm just there's little girls out there who'd love to be in your place. Hurry up, say goodbye to your little friends. We're leaving now…_

"You're gonna make it", Mare kept saying. Roxy had the feeling she was crying. "You're going to make it".

KER-THUNK!

A stray bullet from the gunfight blew out one of the fragile beams that supported the shaft above them. Metal casing that barred it to the ceiling shot out in spinning shrapnel while the whole pillar came arcing down in a sharp axe like a carnival ride. It hit Mare squarely in the side, causing her to vanish from Roxy's side and go catapulting through the air on impact. She landed on the opposite side of the shaft, crashing into the wall in a painful face plant before comically sliding all the way down.

Almost on instinct, Roxy reached out for a piece of metal shrapnel that had fallen with her fingers that were pale from blood loss. The strange thing felt abstract in her hands, almost like she'd never picked something up before, but that just seemed commonplace now. She hugged onto the piece of scrap metal tightly, hugging it and feeling it cut into her stomach. Her mother's voice was there again. _Say goodbye to your little friends. We're leaving now…._

And she was. She was going to leave very, very soon. Glancing up, she watched as a hazy figure danced out of the darkness with a pistol in her hand. It was Lea. There was no mistaking that head of long, gnarled hair and short stature that could hide so easily in the shadows. She was still trying to hide herself in the darkness, struggling to stay just away from Mitch and Zane's sight so the shots wouldn't hit her. There was even a third person in the assault against her now. _Tristan, he's here too._ By the look of it, a few of the trio's shots were actually getting her pretty good. Her face was grazed with thick lines of blood from bullets slicing by and she was walking with a noticeable limp, almost like she'd been nailed in the foot. Her face was intense, but behind it all, there was the basic feeling that every single one of them had. The feeling of fear.

A bullet shot out of the darkness with a crack like mountain's breaking. _Probably from Zane's rifle. _It whizzed through the air, streaking across Lea's face and blowing off a decent section of skin below her left eye. Compared to the other shallow grazes on her face, this one was bad. She howled out in pain, her eye squinting as bright, red blood fizzled out and ran down like rainy tears.

"I'LL GET YOU!" Lea screamed. "I'LL GET YOU!"

But she didn't. Instead, she cocked her pistol again and aimed it at the support pillar directly above her. She fired it at the rusty hinges that bolted it to the ceiling, causing it to rain metal like some kind of a freak meteor shower. The support pillar made a horrible whirring sound for a second before falling down in a splintering crash that shook the ground. Spinning around, she aimed again and did the same thing to the next one. The entire shaft rumbled and rocky debris started to rain down from the arched ceiling.

"_She sees it's a losing battle",_ Roxy thought. _"She knows she's going to lose so she's making a run for it. She's taking this whole place down"._

And there was no way she could let her do that. She'd taken so much from everyone. It seemed like an earthquake was in the shaft now, and this seemed to be enough justification for the others. Mitch, Tristan and Zane quickly abandoned the gunfight and made a frantic run down the tunnel, scurrying up a couple of stray flashlights in their path. They seemed a world away from her, and after a moment, Roxy realized exactly why. _They're the people that are going to live…_

She shook the thought away. Picking up a flashlight from the ground with her free hand, she waved it in a weak motion around the shaft until she found her. Lea was still there. And only a few feet away too. She was busy trying to knock down a stubborn third pillar, barricading the tunnel in half and sealing herself away from everyone. _She can't do that. There's no way you can let her do that…._

"Hey bitch", Roxy spat.

Tightening her painful grip on the piece of metal shrapnel, the actress leapt up, thrust out her good arm and slashed the blade across Lea's already wounded shoulder. There was an awful hissing sound punctured by a howl as the smaller girl collapsed to the ground. With strange laces poking out, Roxy was bemused at the sight of stitches there. _How the hell did she find the time to stitch herself out here?_

But that was beside the point. It was over. All the searching, all the running, it had all come down to this. The air suddenly feeling very hot around her, Roxy felt like laughing into the darkness at the senselessness of it. The sound of it would bounce all over the shaft, and considering how she couldn't see much of anything anymore, nobody would hear her. Nobody at all. _But it's done now. It's all done…._

In front of her, Lea was opening her mouth but couldn't seem to make words come out. Her mouth sneering into an unpleasant smile, she grabbed her handsaw and knelt up before arcing it back into an obscure baseball swing. Watching it all happen, Roxy didn't even blink. She felt like she was on stage again, trapped under those harsh lights, unable to break character until the very last moment. But there wasn't any forced line-reading this time. This was real, and for once, she wasn't one of those characters that she pretended to be, trapped in the vessel of some make-believe stage person that her parents had forced her to be. In death, none of that mattered. _This is who you are, this is really who you are. Time to put some good in the worl-_

A gasp of breathe. And then it was over.

* * *

There was no word to describe what Mare Ewing (Girl #3) felt when she saw it happen. Staring up awestruck from the ground and knocked out the pain she'd been feeling from her flight across the room, she could only gawk at the image of Lea's handsaw cleanly decapitating Roxy Patterson. With black hair sweeping upward like a fan was beating through it, her head flew through the air with bright, arterial blood splashing around the shaft like a fire hose gone crazy. And even with her head so small during death, there really was an unbelievable amount of blood stored in there.

With a thudding sound that rocked the ground, the head came down and knocked against the wall beside where Mare was sitting. Yelping out and jumping backwards, she felt a wave of frantic revulsion when she saw those cold eyes staring out at her. They couldn't even see anymore, but they seemed like they were staring right into her. _Right to the bone._

_It doesn't make sense", _she thought_. "It doesn't make any fucking sense at all! Just a day ago we were all pumped up for some stupid beach trip and now something like this can happen and take us all away! We shouldn't be doing this. We should all be back home, worrying about dating or college or if our parents know we're doing drugs or something. That's where we're supposed to be. This isn't right!" _

There wasn't any time to grieve. There wasn't even anytime to think. A figure thumped into her. From the whole aftershock of what had just happened, it took a second for her to realize that someone was staring right at her. They were holding a flashlight in one of their hands, a pistol in the other. Their shaggy hair was tangled and clumped with dirt and blood. _Mitch. _The others were standing behind him, and if they didn't move soon, there was a good chance that the falling ceiling would end up burying them. _Then so be it…_

"MARE, WE HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE!" Mitch screamed. "THIS WHOLE FUCKING PLACE IS COMING DOWN!"

"BUT SHE GOT HER!" Mare screamed. Her voice was trembling but she didn't care. "SHE JUST….SHE JUST TOOK HER AWAY LIKE SHE WAS NOTHING. YOU CAN'T DO THAT. THOSE FUCKERS….THEY JUST….THE JUST KEEP TAKING AWAY FROM US! WHAT THE HELL IS THAT ABOUT, MAN? THEY CAN'T DO THAT!"

"MARE, LISTEN TO ME!" Mitch screamed. "IF WE DON'T GET OUT OF HERE RIGHT NOW, WE'RE ALL GOING TO FUCKING DIE TOO! DID YOU SEE TERRY?"

"She left", Tristan muttered. It sounded like he was coughing on something. "She's fine, let's just get out of here".

She didn't move voluntarily. If it wasn't for Zane grabbing onto her shoulder and dragging her down the passageway, she probably would have died in that mineshaft. The world rumbled around her, shaking her to the core, but she could hardly feel it. All she felt was the repetitive drum beat of her breathe, slowing and speeding up as they zigzagged down that maze of corridors. When she looked back at it later, Mare realized that she should have been thinking about a lot more. It only made sense, because in the grand scheme of things, there certainly really was a lot to think about. Blood had been shed, bonds had been broken, and worst of all, someone had left the world forever without any whim or reason to it. This wasn't something she could just brush off and pretend not to care about with a good cigarette. This wasn't something where she could blow energy off afterwards with a quick steal down at the convenience store by the school. Hell, she couldn't even talk to Roxy anymore…

There wasn't any grand-scale sense of philosophy in her thoughts. Instead, Mare thought that same phrase over and over:

_They can't do that…_

And then the four of them were gone, turning a corner in the darkness and resigned to an unknown fate.

* * *

Listening to the screams and clamor of hands scrambling up the mine shaft, Lea sat in the dark and cringed. This wound was bad. The first-aid kit couldn't cover it this time either. Even if she ended up winning, the probability of her actually living more than a week was pretty slim. _And who knows how bad the pain's going to get in a few hours?_

A mess of debris had sealed her off from the other side of the mine shaft where the others had entered. It was a haphazard mess, mainly pillars and metal debris that had fallen and barricaded her from getting hurt. Grimacing as she pulled her leg free from a board of wood it had been lodged under, she took in a deep breath. _Good to go._

Feeling angrier than she ever had in her life, Lea felt something brushing against her leg. She only had the dim realization that it was Roxy's head, but she felt furious enough to tear the entire shaft down piece by piece. Swinging back her foot, she roared and kicked the head like some kind of soccer ball. It didn't have the same effect, but she did get a satisfying thud that led to the soft crack of her bony cradle. She tried kicking her again, but the head had vanished into the darkness. _Good_

There was something that needed to be taken care of. It needed to be taken care of it immeadidly, but at least it would give her time to rest. She'd fled from them a few hours ago when her life had been put on the line, but with some luck, they would still be sitting duck long enough for her to return and get her revenge.

Lea turned and started walking, gathering her thoughts along the way.

* * *

**Eliminated **

**(Girl #12) Patterson, Roxy**

* * *

**22 Students Remaining**

* * *

**A/N: Sorry for the huge gap between updates. I've been gone literally the entire summer and I've had hardly any access to a computer. A new poll has started on my profile, so vote if you want.**


	35. Day 2: Hour 33: 22 Students Remaining

They said salt air had a way of making people hungry. It could have just been childhood memories, but sometimes, she really thought it was true. The briny smell of the beach was the same thing that she equated to weekend beach trips with her family. Just the scent of the ocean made all the other senses come back. She could hear the wild clamor of carnival rides on the boardwalk, she could see gulls flapping in the air, and most of all, and she could smell sugary funnel cake. Funnel cake was the best. _And nobody makes it better than the Louisiana boardwalks. Good times, good times. Gosh, I'm sick of all of this shit…_

Shyla Ryals (Girl #16) was homesick. Not just homesick, but really more helpless than anything else. The whole premise of the situation was getting a little unnerving. It was getting _demanding_. For as long as she remembered she'd thrived on control, keeping her head above water in her honors classes and feeling comfort in knowing what was behind the next corner. In her mind, if she had played her cards right, that attitude might have even gotten her into law school before she'd been signed up to be cannon fodder. She kept wishing she was home – each time praying it would come true more than the last – but nothing was happening. Every time she tried, the only thing cemented in her mind were those two cryptic words that had plagued her since sunrise. _Day two…_

She shuddered and looked around the beach again. The white sand was as bright as snow in the sunlight, piling up into tiny dunes and finally sloping down to shore where it sank undertow into the blue waters. Mollusk tide creatures clung to the wet rocks. Palm trees whistled above them like infant's rattles. But when Shyla looked around the beach, she observed it all dully; because more than anything else, she was paying attention to _her_….

"F3! F3! F3!"

She was standing on the other side of the beach – a windswept, ragged mess silhouetted by the afternoon sun – and she was screaming again. It was hard to tell exactly what her ramblings meant, and as far as Shyla was concerned, there probably wasn't any sense to them. She knew people handled stress differently. Some stood strong, some put up faults to hide the truth but most just caved in when things got outside their comfort zone. When it came down to it, almost everyone was in a disguise - and there was no denying that the guise of Adrienne Spring (Girl #17) had finally fallen. _Either that or it's the other side of it. It's all calculated. It has to be. Everything's calculated when it comes down to it…._

"I wish I was insane", Shyla sighed.

"Beg your pardon?" Amber said.

She was sitting upright against the sand dune. A half-full bottle of water was clutched in her hand and her face was a mess of oily perspiration. Still – with all of the aside – she looked more or less the same as when the game had begun. She'd kept her dirty-blonde hair straight somehow, only allowing a few uneven curls to brush out from the ocean wind. The only real flaw she had going for her was her leg. With the bullet still encased in there, the flesh on her knee had grown blue and weathered. The hole the bullet had gone through was as dark as the end of a cigarette bud. Scrapings of dried blood and god know's what else were poking through like the bloody porthole of some kind of massacred whale.

"Nothing", Shyla said. She paused for a second. "Y'know, I feel….I feel like I could eat a cow…"

"Same old Shyla", Amber laughed.

Shyla grinned back. "Same old Amber. How's your leg treatin' ya?"

"Good enough. I feel like it'll collapse if I put any real weight on it, but I think I'm good. As long as we kick back for awhile, we should be good".

"Don't worry", Shyla said. "I don't think we'll be doing the old charge of the light brigade for awhile".

"Erin tried to run away", Amber noted. "And she made it too".

"Erin", Shyla said matter-of-factly. "Took a gamble and won. Besides, she didn't have a leg that's probably going to have to be amputated when this is over".

"Fair enough", Amber sighed. She was quiet for a moment. "No more cheerleading, huh?"

"Unless you think you can hop around on one leg, I think that career is pretty much over".

"Ah well, fuck it. I was getting sick of it anyway. I never really thought going out for varsity was a good idea. My parents were never really into me cheering, especially being a captain. I mean, who wants to show their underwear to a million people anyway?"

"Well, there's Adrienne", Shyla replied. "And then there's the rest of those self-impressed bitches - the kind of girls who were showing their underwear just for the fucking sake of being a cheerleader and not because they liked doing it".

"Ah come on, Shy", Amber laughed. "You can't say you took cheerleading to have fun, did you? You did it for the whole social scene just like every other girl on the squad".

"Well, I took it because everyone else was doing it", Shyla said. "Sure. But I always liked cheering for our school. I really did like Spanish Rivers. I mean, I thought it was a good school when it came down to it – lots of nice kids. And what about you? Why did the Queen Bee here try out for cheerleading even though she hates it so much?"

"Adrienne signed me up", Amber said. She wasn't even smiling anymore. Instead, she gave a strange half-shudder and started nibbling at her bread roll. "No choice really".

"Yeah", Shyla said thoughtfully. "I guess a lot of things were like that, weren't they?"

"I guess they were", Amber sighed. She was silent for a second. Her eyes stared down numbly at her leg and the infected gash of flesh bloating out of it. "Christ, I want to go home…"

"I've been there", Shyla sighed. "Trust me".

She smiled and suddenly felt a gnawing craving in her gut. There were only a few scrapings of bread rolls left between each of them though, and wasting them just because her stomach felt a little queasy didn't really seem like a good idea. _But is it really because you're hungry, Shy? Or is it just because you're scared. There's such a thing as comfort eating y'know…_

Shyla liked eating. It was something that made her feel bad, but she just couldn't help it. Hard day at school? No problem. All she had to do was spend a minute or two rummaging through her fridge for leftovers. Sometimes her luck turned out dry with cold Chinese noodles, but sometimes there'd be real after-school snacks like a slice of devil chocolate cake. And even when the food wasn't the most nourishing in the world, it didn't matter - despite how it tasted, no Tupperware dish was safe for more than a few days. _I need food. Real food. Not sawdusty bread rolls but a nice big sundae full of hot fudge and walnuts and…and…._

It just wasn't working. It really wasn't. You could try to take your mind off your worries, but it just wasn't going to work out. Shyla prided herself on being able to keep her head above water. Control was a good skill to have. The debate team had been a great way to let off steam, and although she was just as fiery an activist as other school revolutionaries, she never spoke her real opinions. Words were dangerous. Shyla had read enough of the newspaper in the morning to know that voicing your opinion in the good old U.S.A was sure-fire suicide. It was better to lay low and pride yourself on knowing the truth. It was good to be one of the thinkers, but that was just it. You needed to be a thinker – not a speaker. The issues Shyla debated about were the distilled school issues that a teenager in every town seemed to fight for. _Why is the town lake so polluted? Why is the school funding the athletic teams instead of the tech department? Oh wait, here's a new one. Why are we on this fucking island?_

But the game was different. Keeping your head above water didn't seem to matter anymore. She pictured herself being submerged under the tide that was sloshing in and out in front of them, gasping for air but being pulled down to the undertow. It was coming soon – her breaking point. Soon enough, she'd been flapping her arms too and screaming every time the ship came around.

And then, almost like she was reading her thoughts, the screaming started from the other side of the beach again:

"F3!"

"F3!"

"F3!"

"The ship's back", Amber said bluntly. "Christ, I wish she'd shut the fuck up. What the hell is she doing anyway?"

"I don't think we'll ever know", Shyla sighed. "Really, I'm stumped".

She gazed out into the ocean and scanned the whole horizon line until she found herself back at the shore. The ship was passing the beach again, a massive white ocean liner piled high with bidders that were practically climbing over each other on deck to get a decent view of them. They were calling out things, vulgar and obscene – this wasn't fazing Adrienne at all though. She kept jumping up and down, screaming out those string of coordinates and swinging her arms out like some kind of scarecrow that had abruptly come to life.

"F4!" Adrienne shrieking. "F4, you bastards! You heard me! _F fucking 4!"_

The entire deck seemed to cheer like a rippling wave, chanting out manic support for Adrienne. Now that they were slowly cruising toward their side of the beach, Shyla was able to get a decent view of them. There was easily over a hundred of them just on the deck, the majority of them overweight and clad in business suits. _Wall Street guys. Office guys. High bidders. Christ, what's happening to this country?_

And then one of the bidders called something out – this time not even directed at Adrienne:

"Hey Prescott! How about a quick peak for the camera? The audience fucking loves you, baby! Am I right or am I right?"

"GO TO HELL!" Shyla roared. "I HOPE YOU FUCKERS HIT AN ICEBERG AND SINK!"

But this didn't have any effect on them at all – in fact, it only made them cheer louder. They called out more things, some downright obscene and others poor attempts to motivate the girls into making it to the end. It was a strange thought to think, but in the end, there was bids riding on all of them. The bidders on the deck jeered more and more before finally vanishing around the corner as they had so many other times the day before.

"Pigs", Shyla spat. "They're all a bunch of fucking pigs".

"You didn't have to stand up for me", Amber said blankly. "I…I could have done it myself…"

"Forget it", Shyla sighed. She was infuriated now and she was trying her to best to mellow out. "That was when and this is now".

"Guess you're right", Amber said simply. "You hungry?"

"We only have a few scraps of bread left. We better save-

"If you're hungry just eat", Amber said. She sounded impatient but she also sounded like she had a point. "Don't starve yourself. You never know out here which meal is going to be your last…"

For a moment, Shyla considered arguing. And then – remembering how words had hurt them countless times before – she turned around with a grimace and unzipped her backpack that was lying in the dirt beside her. After rummaging around and feeling slightly crestfallen at the sight of empty water bottles, she found a crusty loaf of bread and shoved it into her mouth. It tasted awful and she felt the urge to spit it out, but nonetheless, it was food.

"Bon appétit", Amber said with a grin.

"This stuff sucks", Shyla said and smiled back. "I mean, if they want us to kill each other the least they could do is give us some half-decent food to get us going".

"Remember the bowling alley, Shy? Cora's party?"

"Do I ever", Shyla laughed.

There was no way they could forget the incident at the bowling alley – not in a million years. Cora Marlack was a girl on the cheerleading squad that nobody really liked. Vain and self-centered with oily skin and even greasier hair, the only reason anyone really put up with her was because her family was rolling in money from owning several local business around town.

One of her family's greatest attractions however, was the Roll-Till-U-Win Bowling Alley down at the otherwise deserted downtown strip mall.

Cora Marlack had jumped at the chance of hosting the school's traditional party there to celebrate Spanish River's recent football victory against their neighboring rival Omaha Central. With Cora's parents out of town for some kind of cocktail party, everyone was excited at the prospect of getting stoned and turning on the alley's multi-colored laser lights for a night of fun. The party was intended to last until midnight. It ended up only lasting until nine-o-clock before the police came.

The first step toward disaster had occurred a day before the party when Cora had approached Shyla with a wonderful idea. Considering how marijuana went well with practically every pastry in existence, she had ordered her to make a raspberry chocolate cake since there weren't enough people bringing refreshments. Even though she absolutely detested Cora, Shyla had agreed – the comfort of baking things in the kitchen had always appealed to her. If the debate team didn't open up any careers for her, she'd considered being a chef – God knew that cheerleading wasn't going to get her anywhere.

Amber had come over after school to help her with the cake. After four hours of tireless baking, it had turned out great. They'd even decked it out in the school's colors – blue and white – and stenciled on the words, "SPANISH RIVERS SULTANS RULE!" Carrying the cake out to the car had been a feat, but they'd pulled it off and it had survived the entire ride to the bowling alley. Everybody was walking in by the time they got their and bad-techno music was booming out of the doorway. They could even see the strobe lights, flickering on and off and casting light around the shadows of hundreds of wasted teenagers dancing in the alley's waxed lanes. The entire room smelled like an even mixture of pot and liquor; in Shyla's mind, the smell of high school.

Cora had been waiting just inside in her pink and frilly dress. When they'd approached her with the cake, her eyes had enlarged in her head. She screamed that they'd gotten the whole thing wrong and it wasn't anything like she wanted. She demanded that they go home and bake the whole thing over again. When Amber had yelled back at her, saying that they'd worked four hours and she should have just gotten someone else to bake her fucking cake, Cora had glared and shoved her. Unprepared for the blow, Amber had stumbled into Shyla who immeadidly lost her grip on the cake. The double-decker raspberry chocolate cake had fallen over, splattering over Cora's head and coating her hair with globs of icing and batter. Staggering backwards, the real fun had begun when she'd hit the wall and accidentally set off the fire alarm. The sprinklers had gone off in the bowling alley and everybody had run outside screaming with no clue what was going on. Even worse, the police ended up coming because of the noise when the partygoers was gathered in the parking lot and everybody had to make a break for it. Nobody had ever forgotten the night – nobody besides Cora had really known about the cake either.

"It actually tasted pretty good", Shyla said with a grin. "I kept some in my fridge. It's too bad no one else got to taste it".

"Yeah", Amber said with a grin. "Everyone got away right?"

"I think so. I heard Chris Barrister and one of his friends got sent to the station, but I think they were just looking for attention. It may not have been a great night, but you can't forget times like that. Especially not now".

"You sure can't".

The silence came out of nowhere. Neither of the girls really knew what to say next. Those really were times long gone. There weren't going to be any more bowling alley parties. No more football games. No more getting stoned and dancing to strobe lights with the prospect of your future a world away from you. It was all so unreal now.

"We're going to die soon, I think", Amber said finally. She was still smiling a little from the story, but it wasn't a warm smile anymore. It was one that Shyla had never seen; cold and cynical.

"Yeah", Shyla said. She didn't even feel the need to argue. "I think we are…"

"Well", Amber sighed as she picked up her empty water bottle. "Then let's make a toast".

"You make toasts with wine", Shyla said with a smirk. "We don't even have any water left…"

"I have about half a bottle here", Amber noted. "Here".

She reached out and grabbed the empty water bottle that Shyla had rummaged out of the bag earlier. Filling it with half of the lukewarm water supply she had left, she handed it to her friend with a smile on her face. Shyla didn't return it.

"What do we drink to?" Shyla asked.

"To being alive", Amber said. "And being friends".

"Right back at ya, girl".

They clinked the plastic bottles together and drank.

* * *

Adrienne Spring (Girl #17) was watching them talk. She pursed her lips and squinted her eyes, trying to make sense of their conversation but really not getting much of it. The boat was gone now so there was no real reason to scream anymore. She just stood there on the beach, watching with those calculating, cat-like eyes. A gust of ocean wind swept by and she shivered.

The boat would be coming back soon. She was exhausted, but if she wanted to get the message across, she would have to scream again. They seemed to be listening to her, but she needed to go that extra mile. She had to really get them to listen to her if she wanted the bigger picture to work out.

The bigger picture. That was what she'd been planning since her arrival in the game. In the grand scheme of things, it was how everything was going to work out. There were definitely several things that had gotten in the way (most notably Erin running off to fuck with some boy like a bitch in heat) but it would all be trivial in the end. Trivial was a good word to describe everything; the island, the people that were on it, the people on the boat._ Trivial, trivial, trivial…._

Adrienne watched the tide slush in again and wet the sand into a soft brown before rolling back. She walked out unwillingly and stood there in the sand, closing her eyes and letting the cold, green water brush in between her bare feet. She knelt down slowly, hugging her knees and gazing out into the surf. _Christ, I'm going out of my mind here…._

Memories were coming by now. They were far and in between, but they were definitely memories, no denying that. She tried to push them back, trying as hard as she could to resist the low thrumming sound of those voices, but they ended up coming through.

_I'm taking you off the pills, Adrienne._

_But I-_

_No, there's no more buts! Listen to me, Adrienne! There's absolutely nothing wrong with you – in fact, you're a perfectly healthy young girl. You've definitely had some trauma, that's for sure, but it's trauma that can be dealt with. There's nothing that's stopping you from living a perfectly normal life. _

_But I'm a schizo! I have to be! I looked at all the tests! There's something wrong with me!_

_I'm taking you off the pills. There's no point anymore. All you're doing is worrying your foster parents to death. D o you know what these pills really are, Adrienne? They're nothing – all you're really swallowing is a load of hot air and some water in a tablet. It's nothing, nothing at all. In fact, it's a placebo. I've been giving you a placebo, Adrienne._

_But I'm a schizo! I am! I am!_

_I'm not going to get angry at you. I'm just going to tell you the facts. You have to stop. The tests are final. In fact, I believe these emotions you have only come from your dissatisfaction with other people. Whenever anyone tries to love you, you feel the need to push them away. And whenever you see someone being loved, you have to do the same._

_But…but…._

Adrienne tried to think back to that meeting, trying to remember how she'd finished their conversation in that final doctor's appointment. She'd definitely said something. All she knew was that after that, there hadn't been any more appointments. It was just like the doctor said. There was absolutely nothing wrong with her. _But there has to be! There just has to be! Why am I thinking like this?_

Adrienne shook the thought away and grimaced, looking out at the sea for the ship to come around again. _All according to plan…_

* * *

The world had become a haze.

He smelled smoke, wafting in and out of his nostrils and making him feel like he was about to puke his guts out. Something was pinned against his stomach, giving him the feeling that he was being put down against an operating table. But the smoke – that was definitely the worst part. It was a pleasant enough smell in a small dose, the same smell of the bonfires he always used to have down at the creek with David and Enrique on the Fourth of July, but this was just too much. He felt like he was going to die. _No, not die. No way. __Persevera y triunfaras…._

Miguel Chavez (Boy #3) coughed and struggled to open his eyes. It wasn't necessarily dark – there was just an absence of light. A haze. There were pinpoints of colors dancing in front of him, circling on and off in a wayward cycle. He pictured himself on a carousal, spinning around in around with lights flashing in every hue and shape around him. And they were laughing. Somewhere off in that cold, flashing light of world, he could hear people laughing.

But what were they laughing at? What had he done? Miguel grimaced, trying to piece together what had happened. Was he dead? No, there was no way. He was completely aware of his surroundings. If there was an afterlife, there was no way this could have been it. He'd gotten on a bus in the morning, but after that, it all just seemed like a tunnel leading to a brick wall. There was an abrupt crash – a complete lack of memory - and then nothing at all. _What the hell happened?_

A cycle had happened, that was it. Miguel's whole life had been a cycle – a load of lies to keep up with a hardass reputation that wasn't even real. A cycle of lies.

Random thoughts of no connection slipped into his mind somehow. He thought about shitty commercials he'd seen on TV. He thought about helping his brother Omar stack boxes outside the family's corporation building. He thought about old time rock and roll. _Eddie Cochran, that's a good one._ _Sometimes I wonder what I'm gonna do but there ain't no cure for the summertime blues…._

And that was when it all came rushing back to him. Sitting in the classroom and feeling like he was about to piss himself out of fear. Leaving the manor after Enrique's head got grounded into paste. The explosion at the station. _The explosion! Oh man, hijo de puta!_

Miguel sat up and finally opened eyes.

He was in the tram station – only he wasn't.

Almost all the walls had crumbled down and the room was full of smoke. Planks of wood had fallen out of the ground, exposing the pillars that were at the verge of collapsing from all the fire damage. The fire itself hadn't died out at all. It was still going, burning away at the thick wood but taking forever to do so. The fire was mostly off near the landing dock, piling up into the domed ceiling in a white and orange blaze. The tram station was still standing. It was just too big to all go down at once – if anything, it would take time. _How long do those wildfires in California take to burn out? Days? Who knows? Maybe this thing will even spread across the whole island before it goes down…._

Miguel groaned and tried to get up. He couldn't. He was sitting against the far wall. No, not just sitting there – he was pinned by an enormous plank of wood that had fallen and heaved him into the corner. He gazed out wearily through the smoke and eyed the long strip of metal cleating that made up the long loading dock for the trams. The red tram that they'd been planning to bomb the school with – the one with Enrique's face – was now dented like a massive explosion had gone off inside it. Feeling an oncoming headache from the smoke inhalation, he tried to put everything together piece by piece. He'd been in the tram lobbing cocktails. And then something had blown up and he'd been sent flying across the room.

Groaning with his head cocked toward the ground, Miguel grabbed the plank of wood with hands that felt feather light. Heaving all of his muscle into it, he managed to push it off and sent it scattering to the ground with a deafening clatter. Then he sat up slowly, bringing his hands up to his face and finding it caked in grease and sweat from the smoke. He steadied himself slowly, looking around at the mess of cabinets and wooden planks with alert, wild eyes. And then he started walking though the smoke.

"_Erin",_ he remembered suddenly. _"Erin Thompson. The chick that David dated. She was here, wasn't she?"_

He shivered as he walked across the pine wood flooring of the station, expecting any second to see her corpse lying there with sickening burns all over her body. He didn't though. All he saw was that long stretch of a fiery hallway that finally opened up into the sunlit sawed-off wall at the end of the station. _Where's David anyway? He's here, isn't he? Why doesn't he just come out? Did he leave without you or something?_

"Dave", Miguel said suddenly. "Where are ya buddy?'

He walked down the long corridor, struggling to see through the smoke and finally regaining his sanity. Their plan was over, that was for sure. But the way he saw it, maybe there had to be a few disasters for a miracle to work out. Dave and him could leave the station later that day, maybe look around outside to see if there was a real escape mission going on that wasn't two kids putting a half-assed bomb together in a treehouse. It was a selfish thought, but with his conscience too cleared out now to feel any grief, Miguel was almost glad for the fire apocalypse on the tram station. His plan was gone now – at least there wasn't any more pressure. No one was expecting him to be a leader anymore. No one was looking up to the ghetto thug with the stick up his ass to lead them to salvation. Maybe David would even calm down a little and they could get things rolling in the right direction. They could go for a fresh start. _Maybe things might end up working out…._

Miguel suddenly had a coughing fit and almost vomited. The smoke really was over-powering. He thought about cancer for a second, but then realized that it was probably the last thing on his worries. Walking faster now and more than a little worried, he started scanning the loading dock up and down. Nobody was there. Careful to avoid the patches of flames, he walked down the smoke-logged corridor and wiped a string of sweat from his mouth. He probably looked like hell, but then again, that was also one of the last things on his worries. _God damn it man, where the hell are you?_

He was only several feet away from that sawed-off wall where the cable exited when he finally saw it.

"OH SHIT!" Miguel screamed. His eyes went wide. "NO! NO! NO! NO!"

He ran forward and collapsed, refusing to believe what was in front of him. There was no way. There was just no way it could have happened. _That's two friends down, now! Two friends down because of you!_

David's body was eagle-sprawled out on the ground beside the loading dock. His skin had gotten soft and weathered from the smoke and flames, his face charred and peeling with a small patch of fire licking it. There were three powerful gunshots in his chest, each of them giving Miguel the impression that he could his whole fist in them. Part of his face was torn away, his braces a tattered fence of blood and metal that was tearing out of his cheek. David Rodriguez didn't just look dead – he looked like someone had tried cremating him.

"NO! NO! NO!"

Miguel couldn't take it anymore. He collapsed over the charred corpse, sobbing his eyes out and rubbing his face into David's chest that already had the foul stench of decay. There'd been so many opportunities; so many chances to stop it from happening. David had been such a fighter. In his eyes, everyone had been out to get him. He'd had a good heart when it came down to it, but that hadn't stopped him from suspecting people and losing control every time a situation became too much for him. Maybe if he just tried a little harder, he could have calmed him down and gotten him to see the truth about the world. He could have shown him that everyone wasn't out to get him. He could have showed him that even though it didn't look like it, there was much more good on the planet than there was evil. He could've. He would've. He should've. But he didn't – and that was what hurt the most….

"_Lo siento",_ Miguel whispered. _"Lo siento…"_

It was a cycle. That was the only way to describe it. On the island you could try to take control, you could try to show your friends that you cared about them, but it always ended up falling apart. And there were many more cycles than that. The cycle of lies was one of them. The fucking cycle of lies that had been the wraparound that tied together Miguel's life. In school he'd walked around in the hallways with his buzz cut and reputation, but that had only been a façade. An image. Just like how he'd told his friends all those stories about his life. All those childish stories about growing up in L.A that they'd swallowed like clockwork every time. _And he died believing it! He died believing you were some kind of fucking street warrior, you asshole! He died for you! He was murdered! Murdered in cold blood by…._

Miguel's tears suddenly halted. He sniffled them up and stared out into the flames, his fists clenching on the cuff of David's shirt. Him. Nathan Carpenter. He'd shot David to shit and went on his merry way like nothing had ever happened. David' violent nature was one thing, but there was no way he could forgive him for what he did. You have to do it! You have to get him, man! You have to get him back! Get him good!

Revenge wasn't good and he knew it. His father had always said that revenge was one of the deadliest motives a man could have. In the end, all it did was come back hurt the man himself. But there was absolutely nothing left to do now. He was alone now – completely alone with absolutely nobody to turn to - and there was no way he could just sit on his ass for the rest of his time on the island and wallow in the cycle of lies. The cycle had to end. _You have to do it, man. You gotta do it…._

"I'll kill him…." Miguel sobbed. _"I'll kill him for you, man . I'll fucking kill him…."_

And so he hobbled away toward the tram station's stairwell with every intent of murdering Nathan Carpenter.

* * *

The Cuna Cielo Police Station was a small building on the east coast. It was a hut essentially, hidden in a grassy undergrowth that jutted just off from the dirt trail that eventually emptied out into the woods. With the incredibly small amount of residents the island had – mostly wealthy, retired old couples and a handful of native islanders – the station really never had much crime to fight. In fact, it really didn't have any at all. The hut mainly served as a resting place for the island's alcoholic sheriff John Durocher. Other than that, it was really just a shack that gathered dust in the woods.

The outside of the station was sullen with criss-crossed rows of ivy that stretched up the walls and onto the rusty double doors. The inside was well-kept for the most part, but that wasn't saying much; the inside of the police station was really just a haphazard wall of locked filing cabinets and a desk with a wastepaper basket beside it filled with empty bottles of booze. Flies circled around the dim bulb hooked up to the ceiling, twittering away at it like it was a piece of glowing, rotten fruit.

Beside the filing cabinets was the door to the basement. It was almost always open, secured by a heavy brick that counterbalanced the weight. After that it was just rickety steps leading down into darkness. There had been an electrical system in the station at one point, but a recent power-surge had put fixing the lights on Sherriff Durocher's to do list. The steps went down into a concrete room – light shone through the floor-leveled windows. A boiler croaked wearily in the corner.

And sitting in that basement near the end of the thirty-third hour of the Battle Royale was none other than Jude Mercedes (Boy #11).

He was sitting in a lawn chair just in front of one of the floor-leveled, slitted windows, staring down at the battered packet of files in his eyes. Blue light shone up the paper. He read the words quickly, his eyes sliding back and forth and out-of-place, and every so often they would enlarge, impressed or interested by the latest thought that had slipped into his mind. He'd been feeding off information for hours now and wasn't anywhere close to getting sick of it.

Jude turned the page and read onto the next file. They really were interesting when you thought about it. You could look at people as cardboard cutouts all you wanted, but when you really got down to it, there was pretty surprising information buried under the surface. All you had to do was be a prospector and be eager enough to dig it up – and in Jude's mind, he was on a gold rush.

He looked at the header and picture at the top of the page. The yearbook picture was a little dated considering he still had braces in it, but there was no mistaking that overly rosy skin and Ivy League haircut. _Adam Spencers. Plays baseball. Lives with both of his parents. On a bunch of vitamins. Really nothing interesting here, huh? The guy's still alive if that's anything important. Better be sure to keep a note of that…_

A little frustrated and getting bored like he always did, Jude turned the page and looked for somebody interesting. There really weren't a lot of files left now. Most of them had just been lost while he'd jogged around the island. Besides Adam, there was just Erin, Mare, Lea, Zane, Leana and Mae. _And some of those people are dead. What good is that going to do you?_

His attention span had reached its breaking point. With a sigh, Jude turned the page over and folded the torn packet back together in a mess on his lap. Out of all the problems that plagued the highly troubled life of Jude Mercedes, his impatience was definitely high up there. He tired of people easily - just like the way you would tire of an episode of a show that you watched too many times or a food that you ate too much of. At a very early age, he'd been taught that people weren't valuable – in fact, if anything they were expendable by nature.

The bog massacre. That was definitely the highlight that proved that this was true. Chris had thought he was the king. He'd thought he was the king of the castle just like he did at school. But when survival of the fittest came into the picture, Jude knew that the kings and the pawns all went back to the same sandbox. Chris was no better than anyone else – and because of this, he'd died. _Same thing with the others. Mae. Demi. Preston. Eddie. They all had it coming in the long run. Then again, neither are you. You have just as many flaws as they do. When is it going to be your time to go out here? _

He shuddered. The basement that had been sweltering a second ago suddenly felt cold. He got up from the lawn chair slowly and started walking over to the boiler. There had to be some kind of way to turn it up. It wasn't one of those old-fashioned ones though; it was high-tech and it would probably take some tinkering. _Then again, so does everything else. You'll get the hang of-_

And halfway there was when he started to hear the voice in his head:

_Hello Jude._

"Who's there?" Jude demanded – but it didn't sound threatening at all. He sounded like a little kid and he knew it. "Who….who are you?"

There was a grim silence for a second with no answer. He looked around the cellar quickly, making sure that nobody was there. It wouldn't be that hard to take care of them, but if you really thought about it, there wasn't anything he could say with his mouth that they couldn't do with their fists. Or even wrose, a gun.

The voice came again:

_Why don't you go turn the heater up, Jude? It's too cold for both of us down here._

He knew the voice now. With the boiler completely out of his mind now, Jude started to walk back toward the lawn chair. His heart started pounding and sweat beat down his face in thick drops. It was the voice that he thought about every day. It was the voice of the person that had made him the way he was – the person that had taught him absolutely everything there was to know before the incident happened. The voice of his father.

_Hey sport, what have you been up to all these years?_

"No", Jude stammered. "No, there's no way…"

_I've seen the work you did out here. Looks like you got a little out of control, didn't ya? It's a shame sport, it's a real shame. You were always such a good listener…._

"But I stopped listening", Jude said quickly. He sounded like a little kid. "You're gone….they took you away. You're go-

_People are expendable by nature, Jude. I am, you are, and as I'm sure you know, all of your friends out there on the island are. We're the destruction, Jude – we're the constant ring in the ear of every man and animal in this shithole that brings out the most primal instincts that God knows. You've used your words, Jude. Just like I taught you in the lessons. You should feel proud of yourself, and quite frankly, I can't wait until you go out and get some more! Who's next? What about someone close? Prudence? Or maybe Sadie? How would you feel about that?_

"No!" Jude screamed. He ran for the wall and clenched his fists into the concrete. "No! No! No!"

And that was it. Just as quickly as the voice of Randall Mercedes had come, it drifted away and left him alone in that cold, dark cellar. He blinked and looked back at the boiler. There was a dull flame coming from it now and it felt surprisingly warm. Maybe even warmer than before. Shuddering again and struggling to regain himself, Jude walked over to his lawn chair and sat down.

The lessons. He'd tried to forget about the lessons. Up until his father had been sent away to the River County Penitentiary for the incident, the lessons had been the most integral part of his life. Randall Mercedes wasn't a kind man – he was the very opposite in fact, but he was very intelligent. His outlook on the world was different than everyone else. He didn't see things like love or compassion. He just saw people and society as things you could toy around with. But most of all, he saw Jude as his reincarnation – his way of dealing with the repressed thoughts he had. The lessons had both destroyed and enlightened Jude's mind. _No more, no more, no more…._

Jude lied back in the lawn chair and closed his eyes. He felt expendable.

* * *

**No Students Eliminated**

* * *

**22 Students Remaining**

* * *

**A/N: Jude's full backstory will be completely revealed in a very short time. Don't worry. Also, pay attention to the character's dialogue when they're talking about things that happened at Spanish Rivers before the program. I'm not going to say much, but there's more to the class being chosen for this than you think.**


	36. Day 2: Hour 34: 22 Students Remaining

It was like a story from a children's book really. She was a girl lost in the woods, dazzled and feeling like a foreigner in a place that she never thought she'd be. All she needed was a trail of breadcrumbs behind her and it would be a solid image. But that was far from the truth – it was a daydream at most and that was all it would ever be. There weren't any breadcrumbs. There wasn't any gingerbread house coated icing sugar with a cackling witch stirring her cauldron inside. There was something on the island, that was for sure. There might have been a force among them - a constant motivator to get out and get your hands bloody for the sake of the game - but as far as she could tell, there was no witch.

Erin Thompson (Girl #19) was heartbroken. She wandered down the forest trails with her pistol held loosely at her side, lost in thought and feeling like the world was weighing in on her. For awhile she'd walked like a statue, devoid of thought only with the trail in mind, but after about half an hour, she'd started to think. Thoughts racing around in her head, she craned her neck and winced from a slight gash that she'd gotten there from the fall from the tram station. It was the shallow kind, but it was the kind that stung too. The kind that would have made her parents have a cow....

Her parents were the overprotective type, really; the kind who probably would have had a heart attack if they had any real clue of the exploits that their daughter got into. It was hard to deal with - especially with the knowledge that they worried their minds out if she stubbed her toe - but she couldn't help it. By nature, Erin had always had the unquenchable thirst of a daredevil. She'd been the first member of her cheerleading squad to want to stand on the top of the victory pyramid, the only one out her friends to run out to the car to get the booze during that lightning storm back last February and – as a little girl – she'd been the sole girl on her street to climb the oak tree uptown near the Indian reservation. She'd made it all the way to the top, and considering how winter weather tended to ice trees over pretty well, a cherry picker had to be called to get her down.

But that was before the game. Back then, everything had been on track. She'd had good friends, good parents, average grades and a cynical, dry sense of humor that would never win her any awards but never completely alienated her either. Maybe that was the reason she'd always been a thrill seeker in the first place. Up until she'd been sentenced to death, there'd been nothing to fear. _Except love, Erin. Don't forget love…._

Erin sighed and walked down the trail, her boots sloshing in the mud that had formed from the short-lived rain storm yesterday.. Nothing was adding up anymore. Tori had been the first to go. That had been a hard blow, especially considering how great of a person Tori had been, but it had been sickly overlooked. Erin felt awful about it, and later on, she had realized exactly why it had been so easy to deal with. It was the first real death of her life, and out of pure shock, her psyche expected it to be last. _Ain't gonna happen, girl. Ain't gonna happen…._

David had gone next. That had been the worst. That really reinforced the fact that nobody was spared. This was another good guy. This was the same guy that she'd gone to the movies with only a few months ago and cracked jokes with. The great thing about Dave was that he actually got all her jokes – his sense of humor turned out to be just as twisted and dry as hers. Instead of watching the movie, they would usually just end up poking fun at the Hollywood faces staring down at them from the screen. _Look at that girl. Who the hell does she think she's fooling? Her face looks like it's made of plastic. Remind me to get a good nose job if I ever want to be an A-list actor, Dave._

But then the game had taken him too. It had all happened so fast. Just a blink of an eye and he was gone. After that, all reason for surviving had ended. There was really no other choice but to keep running. _Decisions, Erin. Decisions, decisions, decisions…._

She was reminiscing now. It had come out of nowhere, but for some reason, the memory was coming in loud and clear. It had been when she was a young girl, it had been with her grandma, and most of all, it had been the reason she'd started to question the idea of love.

Her grandmother was fat – not just fat, but morbidly obese. She was ninety-four and easily weighed over three-hundred pounds. This baffled her doctors but considering how she probably wouldn't live a few more years, they didn't step in with any health plan to get her life back on track. In fact, they just let her eat whatever she wanted. One of her most memorable habits that made Erin gag was the way she would eat her home cooked steaks made fresh from the farm next door tended by her neighbor. She didn't eat the steak – she solely ate the fat off the edge of it. Erin thought that it was probably an act of God that kept her alive and kicking.

Her days with her grandmother were customary when she was little. With her parents hardly around, they usually dropped her off at her grandma's farmhouse when she felt well enough to take care of her. She would sit in her well-kept kitchen and put together jigsaw puzzles while the old woman sat across from her and smoked cigarette after cigarette. She would tell her stories sometimes, maybe even help her with a puzzle here and there, but she would mostly just play with her cards. Tarot cards.

There was a whole deck of them that she kept in the bureau in her room. Since she'd been a fortune teller back in the 1930s, she had them leftover. Erin only had a limited knowledge of them at the top, but she got the basic principle; they were cards that channeled your destiny and were used as a personal growth and meditation. There were seventy-eight in a regular deck and each one had a different picture and meaning. There was the Wheel of Fortune, the Fool, the Chariot, the Hierophant and countless other ones. There was only one that Erin took into perspective though.

_The Lovers._

Her grandmother had been dealt out her cards on the kitchen table one day, smoking her home-rolled cigarette - the smoke drifting out between her lips like a train whistle - when she'd offered for the first time to help, 'channel Erin's energy'. In other words, she wanted to deal her a card. When the tarot card had come up for Erin, it was a picture of Cupid with trees scattered him and two lovers embracing. The whole picture was silhouetted by the outline of an arrow.

"_The Lovers_", her grandmother had said. "Love follows in the sequence of growth and maturity. It's a path that a young woman takes; it's the choice of identity and figuring out who she is. There's more to it than that though. When the time comes to embrace people into your life, wise decisions must be made. When this card appears, you are being told to trust you instincts Love's a complicated thing, Erin".

Erin had nodded, really only half-understanding what her grandma had said. She was an elementary schooler at the time and her outlook on the world was pretty skewed. Still, there wasn't a night where she didn't think about it. It was just a stupid card when it came down to it, but it was fate. Maybe not fate, but at least a path to take. A path to self-discovery.

Maybe that was why she'd given into those teenage cravings so easily. Maybe that was why she tended to end up with a different guy at every party she went to; and maybe – and this was the worst, 'maybe' of all – was the reason she'd fallen in love with David Rodriguez. Everyone else just saw her as a whore who wasn't going to go anywhere in life, and as much as she hated it, half of this was probably true. If her grades weren't good and her path to self-discovery was attributed to getting into a closet with a guy she didn't even care about, what was the real point?

But, walking down the forest path, Erin didn't find herself caring much about herself. The thoughts of the cards were trivial, and although they popped up every second of every day, they could be overlooked. She thought about David. There one second and gone the next. Out of the blue and into the black. Shot gunned to death just because he'd jumped to conclusions_. So what are you going to do now, Erin? Go back to the beach? Wander around some more? Maybe even go back and bury David? Wait for the clocks to count down?_

No. That wouldn't lead anymore. Shuddering and rubbing her fingers over the metal coat of her pistol, Erin found herself really considering things for a second. _One person's getting out. Your options are running out. There's not going to be anymore tarot cards. No more parties. No more, no more. Unless…._

It wasn't a choice you had to think a lot about. She glanced down at the pistol again. Playing the game had been an option from the moment she left the school, but even now, it just wasn't the right choice. These weren't just people she'd grown up with and sat next in class; these were people with futures that had been robbed from them. There were a lot of things in life that weren't right and Erin wasn't ready to give in. _So what are your other choices? The beach? C'mon, think something up. What the hell are you going to d-_

Her inner monologue ended abruptly when she heard music. It was the soft kind and she had a feeling she'd definitely heard it before. Glancing up from the trail and feeling like she'd just realized where she was, Erin squinted and tried to make out the shape of what was sunken into the ground in front of her. At first she thought it was some kind of shack, but on closer inspection, it was much bigger. It was some kind of bungalow. Water damage and erosion had caused it to sink halfway into the ground. _It looked like a breathing ground for bugs. Then again, so do you. At least that's what everyone always said. All of those goddamn rumors about STDS. Funny how even after everything they said you were clean the whole time…._

She walked closer and got a better grip on her pistol. If there was music, there was somebody playing it – or at least somebody to turn on a radio or something. Only a few feet away from what remained of the front door, Erin suddenly realized what the song was. It was from when her parents were young, it was bouncy and it was old time rock n' roll.

"_Pretty Women", _she thought_. "That's a Roy Orbison song. The guy died from a heart attack, right? Smoked too much. It's all the same with those people – if it's not a plane crash it's a drug overdose. Oh well, it's like that old saying; if there's a rock and roll heaven, then you know they've got a hell of a band._

She sighed again and started to walk closer, oblivious to the fact that she had just made a very bad choice.

* * *

It was one of those picture-perfect moments that seemed suited for a museum worthy landscape painting. Not the kind with the wheat fields stretching out across the southern plains, but the kind where the focus was just small town life – the kind Adam always saw in his history textbook of rednecks sitting on the stoop of their houses with a dandelion in their mouth. _And if they don't have a dandelion they're polishing a gun. Those god damn hicks. They make the whole south look bad. Some country we got going with people like that in our textbooks._

Adam Spencers (Boy #15) wondered if he was going insane. His thoughts had meandered in the last few hours, going from school life and former friends to thoughts that had no real relation to each other at all. He daydreamed about an ice cream soda in his hands one minute, then Christmas sockings brimming with Silly Putty and now, he was fantasizing about somebody painting him; and hell, it really wouldn't even be a good painting either. He could make a list of reasons why right off the back of his hand: he wasn't sitting in a rocking chair on his porch, he wasn't in the south, and most of all, he didn't have a dandelion. Sure, he had a gun – specifically a grenade launcher - but no dandelion.

He did have a guitar though.

Adam sat in the lifeguard chair, strumming the guitar idly and peering out through the floor-level window of the Bughouse. The room had become unlivable in the recent hours, reforming into a living greenhouse as the sun rose and attracting what seemed like the entire insect population of the island. Gnats were buzzing around his head and every second he would have to swat a mosquito that landed on his back for a quick drink. His throat felt dry, his head aching and his body hot. He wondered if he was catching something. _Pneumonia maybe. Maybe even that Nile virus from all the mosquitoes in here. Who really knows what could happen out here?_

Thoughts rambled again, this time going even further to the wayside. He was craving a plate of cheese fries, the grease-stained ones that you knew were a plague to your health that they sold at the Roll-Till-U-Win bowling alley back in Spanish Rivers. He wanted to be young again. He wanted to be safe, maybe go to his cousin's house for the holidays and open a few presents with all of his cousins crowded around him. Faces flashed by here and there, branching out from cousins to schoolmates to neighbors: Mom and Dad, Aunt Patty, that Tara girl with the nice tits who lived down the street from his house, Uncle Jim and even his kindergarten teacher who he hadn't seen in years. It was a cryptic list – just names and faces that he was never going to see again.

He strummed the guitar again thoughtfully. His eyelids weighed him down from lack of sleep, but he kept playing. It's _like they say Adam old boy, the show must go on. And there's a real rock n' roll show going on right outside. Why don't you get out of this shithole and join them? But that's taking a chance. You've been running around the island for god know's how long, and if this isn't a sign that things are going to get better, what the hell is? You've got a gun and a hideway. That's good – and it's bad out there. Sit duck and you'll have a good chance of making it right to the end. Maybe you could even make it right to the end and run into Mitch. Maybe tell him how sorry you are and we can figure out what to do from there…"_

The maybes weren't getting him anywhere, so he tried to bury himself in his music. His parents had only paid for guitar lessons in one month of his life. It had taken a lot of persuading, especially how they associated guitars with the vulgar people they saw on TV who went around smashing them just for the sake of it. They made up a bunch of stupid excuses, but Adam knew the truth. It just wasn't in the code of a perfect American family for the son to go out and be a rock star. A doctor or a lawyer maybe, but not the next Elvis. It had taken a lot to convince them, but after pestering them for what seemed like forever, they'd signed him up for a Christmas present. His teacher had been alright, but like most things in his life, Adam just tired of the guitar after a few short weeks and quit the lessons. In the end, he only had one song to show for his short-lived venture into the exciting world of guitar.

"_Pretty women", _he sang in his croaky voice. "_Walking down the street. Pretty women, the kind I'd like to meet…._

His throat ached from the words. Grimacing but not breaking the strumming – and not even stopping to think that it would lead someone right to him – Adam stared out the floor-level window and thought some more. He considered going outside, he considered more songs he could play on the guitar and he even considered Mitch Kelley. He'd tried to block the guy out of his thoughts, but with each announcement, he couldn't help but feel a little more agitated. There was no saying that he wouldn't be affected if his friend kicked the bucket, but it would be such a relief off his shoulders – if Mitch was gone, at least he could stop worrying about him. _Then again, Mitch was a good friend. Especially back when things were better. Look how much you've changed, Spencers. You were the class clown to them. The crazy cut-up. The guy who made it so we never learned anything. The guy everyone either loved or hated. But that's all water down the drain now - you're the victim, man. You're the guy who's in a fucking bungalow and just got sold out to death by his best friend. How the hell does that happe-_

There was sudden movement out in the forest.

He heard crackling leaves and locked eyes on his target in blinding panic. There was a girl walking in the sunlight just outside, her eyes locked on the ground and completely unaware of her surroundings. Her face was sodden with ash and she looked kind of sad, maybe even a little traumatized, but Adam saw none of that. He quickly put a face to the name. _The Thompson cunt? She thinks she can just come in? Wipe you out? Just clear you out like you're nothing? _

He knew he was being paranoid – and for some reason, he was starting to like every moment of it. Adrenaline coursed through his veins and he found himself almost infuriated with her presence. _Get rid of her. If you don't she'll just get you…._

Shrinking back in the lifeguard chair and feeling like the world was on his shoulders, Adam stopped considering things in an instant. He threw his guitar over his shoulder where it clattered noisily in the corner, some of the strings coming undone. She were coming – she was going to take him away from his sanctuary. Hell, they were going take away his luck in one clawing stroke. After all the running and hiding, it was all going to go to waste. _No way man, no fucking way!_

Adam reached for the grenade launcher and heaved it into his lap. Then he angled it out the window and prepared to hunt.

* * *

She never saw it coming.

The music stopped.

Then there was suddenly a powerful, popping sound like a cork shooting out of an immense bottle. Erin looked around, suddenly alert and feeling more alive than she had since she left the tram station. _Somebody's here._ Uneasy and scared, she turned around and out of pure shock; she almost tripped over her foot to run and went skidding backwards. It all happened over a span of three seconds before the shot arrived. She stepped back again. Her pistol rose into the air.

Then an egg-shaped object came whizzing through the air like a ball at a batting cage. It narrowly missed her left leg, flying forward at a rapid pace like a chariot of fire. Feeling slowed down to a sense of hyper reality, Erin's jaw dropped when she finally made sense of what someone had just been shot at her. _It's a gr-_

The grenade hit a tree and exploded, sending metal shrapnel flying in every direction. Like second nature, Erin ran and dove to ground in the bushes, shielding her eyes as a field of burning white formed around her and the acrid smell of gunpowder filled the air. Fiery scrap metal flew like boomerangs and rained down from the sky. One piece arced by and imbedded itself into the ground, barely missing her head and singing her face with only minor cuts that dug into her flesh. Still, she wasn't entirely spared. One of the pieces from the grenade flew past her leg and she howled out in agony as the lower half of her body was suddenly consumed in flames.

"ERGHHHHHHH!"

Erin shrieked and rolled around on the ground, flapping her hands at her sides in a spasm and struggling to put out the flames. For a bizarre second she thought that she'd been blown up and was lying in hundreds of pieces, but the hallucination quickly passed. She'd ducked out of the way, she was alive and right now she was burning like a slab of meat on a hot grill. Swearing and arcing her head up to avoid the flames, Erin screamed into the morning sun and tried to beat out the fire. It was working for the most part, but the damage was pretty bad. Her left leg was pretty unscathed but her right leg was charred and blackened, almost like it had been overcooked on a stove. The smell was nauseating, and from a combination of this and the pain alone, Erin vomited and spit up her breakfast of bread rolls all around her. White pasted dripped from her lips and strings of it stuck there and clung to her lips. Words popped into her head. _Stop. Drop. Roll. Fire. David. Leaves. Cards. Tarot. Burned….._

She rolled around a final time, finally causing the flames to cease. She flexed her leg and screamed in pain from the damaged skin. If she ever got out of the game, she was definitely going to be a burn victim. If infection spread in later, maybe she would even be a cripple. _Don't think about that. C'mon, just don't think about that…._

Gritting her teeth and forcing herself up from the ground, Erin howled again but quickly trotted her feet up and down. She'd put the fire out quick enough before any serious damage could set in; she was burned, maybe even disfigured, but she could walk. _Or at least try to run. _Tightening her grip on her pistol, Erin looked over at the bungalow and saw that a large gun was poking its ugly snout out through the floor-level window. The air around it was covered in smoke and the coat of the gun was gleaming in the sunlight. The facts were strange, almost disturbing, but they were still facts. One of her classmates had just tried to kill her with a grenade launcher. _You get out of a burning treehouse fine, and a few hours later, you get torched by a grenade. What the hell is that about?_

There was suddenly a muffled voice calling from the house:

"LEAVE ME ALONE YOU FUCKING BITCH!

She put a name to the voice instantly. It was Adam Spencers. He was her lab partner in Biology; an average looking kid who always looked sunburned and a clean haircut that seemed fit for only the most urbane of private schools. He was an alright guy when it came down to it, but he was really too much of a class clown for Erin to take him seriously. She could now however; especially considering that he was attempting to kill her.

"GO!" Adam's voice screamed. He didn't really sound like a murderer – he just sounded scared. "JUST GO! GET OUT OR….OR…I'LL DO IT!"

The gun was suddenly buckling up and down in the window and Erin realized with horror that he was attempting to reload the launcher. He wasn't satisfied with just burning and scarring her. He was actually going to go all-out with what he was doing. _Pressure's getting to him. He's starting to think he's some kind of high and mighty serial killer….._

But she didn't want to stick around and try to figure out the complicated mind of Adam Spencers, nor did she desire to be killed by him. Things were falling apart. She hadn't been able to save Tori, she hadn't been able to save Dave and if she stayed, she wouldn't be able to save herself either. Staying around would be like jumping head-first into your own grave. She had a pistol. Adam had a grenade launcher. _That's like a little clown car going up against a truck…._

Whimpering and feeling more shaken up than she ever had in her life, Erin started running. Her jog was awkward, the result of being badly burned, but she couldn't help it. There were more options now, and with the scourge marks on her leg, they were becoming more and more prevalent. _Go back to the beach. Play the game. Hide somewhere and pull an Adam Spencers. Deal or no deal, Erin. What's your choice?_

But she was even more alone now and that only strengthened her decision. For a long time, longer than she'd ever realized until now, Erin had been alone. She'd been alone at cheerleading practice with all of that mindless gossip, alone when the same gossip came back to hurt her and even alone when she was in a closet screwing with a guy every Friday night. Loneliness was a pretty hard thing to categorize. Maybe you could even put it on the same level as love.

She'd made bad decisions. That was for sure. All the partying and drinking had been pretty high up there back in Spanish Rivers, but the stuff on Cuna Cielo was more of a guilt trip. Siding with that nutcase. Abandoning your friends. Failing to save the one guy you care about. Her grandma's words. Something about a path? A path of self-discovery that probably didn't mean anything, yet at the same time she couldn't help but feel fascinated with? What's the right path? What exactly was self-discovery anyway? _And then there's Amber and Shyla. The next announcement's coming up soon, you know. What names are we going to hear this time? Who else are you going to lose?_

Erin looked around and made her decision quickly. With a gun, a will and a way, the only real choice in her mind was to go back. You could desert a lot of things, but in the end, you couldn't desert your friends. Especially when you ran out on them. Turning around from the bungalow, she made a break for it and ran as quickly as she could, feeling like she was running on a hot griddle from the pain in her leg.

_People aren't what they used to be, are they?_

She ran and ran. She heard a grenade firing and exploding behind her a few seconds later.

* * *

Adam Spencers (Boy #15) looked out through the window of the Bughouse and watched her run. He'd missed her. Not once, but twice. He'd tried hard, even angled his scope to get a shot that he couldn't miss, but he just wasn't used to this kind of stuff. The bitch had actually gotten away.

He sat back in his chair and let out shallow breathes, his head staring up at the ceiling and his face lathered in sweat. With all of the energy out of him, he almost felt relieved. It was a sense of power, almost akin to an energy rush. There would be more too. One had come – and if one had come, there would definitely be more coming his way like cows being lead to a slaughter.

_But there's more to it though….._

He sighed and cupped his face in his hands. What had happened to being a class? What had happened to being a family? What had happened to having your friends backs? All of that togetherness and sense of school spirit? Sense of America? _Who are we? Spanish Rivers Sultans! Who are we? Man, I want to go back. Mom and Dad. Easter egg hunts. Cousins. Baseball games. All-American kid, ain't ya Spencers? You'll show em' all. If they want us to kill each other, you'll be fine and dandy with that. Righty-o. Do what the big man says, that's always the way to go. That's how you're going to get home…_

He sat in the chair for a long time. A few minutes later, he was staring out the window and practicing his aiming.

* * *

Nearing the end of the thirty-fourth hour of the Battle Royale, Nathan Carpenter (Boy #16) was quite oblivious to the fact that he had become a target for revenge. In fact, on that late morning hour where the sun peaked down through the trees and lit up the forest like the windows of a cathedral, a superficial thing like revenge was one of the last things on his mind. There were more important things to deal with, and if he ever wanted to get them done, he had to put his mind to work.

He was sitting back against the tree trunk, his mind full of worries with answers trying to break through. There was a stream bristling through the clearing in front of him, flowing down into a sloped hill over brown, water covered rocks that were sullen with moss. He'd been watching the stream for a very long time, and as far as he was concerned, there was nothing wrong with this at all. If you wanted to associate the island as a whole with death, it would only seem right to associate the stream with life. People broke easily under pressure, killing their friends just for the sake of it, but the stream didn't. It bellowed on and on, and although obstacles could stop it, Nathan had the feeling that it would spatter down the hill for the rest of time.

There was a line to a song lost in mind somewhere. _You say you want a revolution?_

Nathan sighed. He didn't want one. At least not a violent one. He wanted to make a proof, to expose the truth and the evil of what was really going on, but he didn't want a revolution. If you want to stop the fighting, a revolution's not the way to go…

It's not like any of them would listen to him either. Most of his classmates didn't like him because he was withdrawn, dressed well and wore square glasses that sat awkwardly on the brim of his hooked nose. All of these factors were what made the rest of the guys think he was a pansy and the girls think he was a fruit. It wasn't something that got him mad – it was just how high school worked and Nathan had gotten used to spending his lunch period in the library while everyone else chatted away in the cafeteria. He had friends, sure, but they were more acquaintances than anything else; they were just the friendly faces that were willing to let him work with them in class or offer a smile in the hallway. _Still, that's not saying there weren't a few nice kids in school. Everyone was good before this happened…._

Nathan sighed and sat up from the tree trunk. As he scrambled to his feet, he got a whiff of sweat from his armpit and winced. He smelled – everyone else on the island probably did too. The lack of proper hygiene was finally beginning to settle in. They were becoming animals, which was exactly what the bigwigs wanted them to do. There were so many things wrong with the Battle Royale program that they didn't even need to be said. Over the years, philosophy had been lost to the point where knowing that something was immoral didn't even matter anymore. The world was corrupt – just a big money pit for people to bid off violence and scare the population….

He spit on the ground and adjusted his glasses. Something needed to be done. The question was what? What would get the point across that fighting wasn't the answer? What would end the body count? They were all going to die – that was a guarantee – but what was going to make it so they could die in peace?

He'd been thinking about this ever since he'd left the tram station. The image of David's stomach being splattered by his newly acquired machine gun was almost painful to relive. He'd caused it. He'd actually ended a life. _All of that stuff you thought about earlier? The whole adventure façade? Just a way to hide the truth Nathan my friend. Just a way to hide the truth…._

He was going to make a difference. The question was how? He had a few ideas, sure, but nothing was guaranteed yet. There needed to be more planning, especially if he wanted to get to some of the really hardheaded people out there. _Don't just get the guys on the island, get the whole audience. Show the truth. Get them to listen to you…._

There was suddenly a shadow scampering by at his feet. Staring over by the riverbank, Nathan found himself face-to-face with a squirrel. It wasn't the kind he'd seen back in Oklahoma. The tail was different and he had the feeling it was a kind you could only find in the tropics. They stared at each other for a long time, neither of them moving. The squirrel obviously couldn't think, but somehow, Nathan had the feeling that it was studying him. Trying to make sense of him….

"You don't know how well you have it", Nathan said quietly.

The squirrel stared at him for a few seconds with its beady eyes. Then it scurried away.

Nathan stared up at the sky and brainstormed, oblivious to where his desire to make a point would eventually get him.

* * *

**No Students Eliminated**

* * *

**22 Students Remaining**


	37. Day 2: Hour 35: 22 Students Remaining

It happened in one fierce stroke that morning. The whole ordeal wasn't really that long – only lasting a few minutes and much more lenient than some of the other endgames the island had to offer – but it left behind a lasting impact like the cracks of a fresh spade plunged into the earth. A rippling effect was a good way to describe it. In the eyes of those in the school, in the eyes of everyone watching at home and even in the eyes of some of the remaining contestants, it was like a pack of wolves lured around a strip of meat. It was really just another body; just like a quick, atypical, Darwinian elimination of the animals that had fallen to prey at the savannah's water hole.

In the eyes of the outside world, it was really no real loss.

And so on exactly 11:35 AM on the second day of the Battle Royale, the girl pack's number went down from four to three.

* * *

Erin Thompson (Girl #19) stared out through the trees with her entire body shaking; she glanced out nervously across the white sand like it was a mine field, and right there, she could see them. They were two faces she had known since grade school; she could name just about every aspect of their lives – from their middle names to their favorite teeny-bop boy bands - and this only made her feel worse about everything that had happened. The girls were Amber Claudette Prescott, recently christened as Girl #13, and Shyla Evelyn Ryals, she who had become Girl #16. They were huddled together over the sand dune a few yards off from the shore, clumped together like two girls a sleepover – it might have even been able to pass for one too if it wasn't for the corpse sprawled out by the shore. Even from far away, the carcass of the late Victoria Jenkins somehow looked even worse than it did before. The tide had washed in a deteriorating rinse cycle, her flesh paling from the salt water and the ocean mollusks clinging to her bluish body. It only reinforced that things had definitely gotten worse. _And if they did, it's your fault. You're the one that bailed out._

The coast was clear and it would be a quick sprint, but the possibilities of what could go wrong were weighing her down. Pessimism was a habit and it was kicking in mighty fierce at the moment. She may have been able to see Amber and Shyla, but on the other hand, Adrienne hadn't left the picture either. She was sitting on the other side of the beach like a sightseeing tourist, leaning back into the sand as she washed the clouds. It would have also been tranquil if it wasn't for the fact that she was carrying a pistol. She ran her fingers up and down it with her lips pursed, deep in thought and thinking of all the things it could do in one instant. Suicide. Murder. Redemption. It was hard to say if the rewards outnumbered the risks anymore.

_Or if good outnumbered evil. There's always that one…_

Erin shuddered. She wasn't in the mood for questioning things right now. If she really wanted to figure out the complicated mess that was Adrienne Spring, she'd put the pieces together later – preferably when both of them were done and she didn't even need to think anymore. It wasn't something she was planning to do, but then again, it was a shot that had been perpetual the whole time – it was the shot that all of them were too frightened to do. The intentions behind it were plain, simple, and primitive: murder.

"_You're really thinking of this?"_ Erin thought. _"You're really thinking of…of...of assassinating her?'_

_Assassinate._

It was an odd choice of words. Assassination, in short, was reserved for government officials and high figures in the politic world – it wasn't meant for a girl that she'd known since kindergarten. Besides, even though vocabulary had never been her strong suit, she did know that an assassination usually meant that the person was highly respected or notable. Adrienne had torn them apart like a hungry animal – that was notable sure, but it could only be respected by a homicidal maniac. _Someone on the same level. A maniac just like her._

Erin grimaced as she looked down at the pistol, frightened of the thoughts she'd had in the last few hours but too exhausted to think them through any further. Time was running out. She looked down and unclipped her weapon, checking the bullets she had in her pistol. _Four shots. That's three more than you'll need._ She took a quick look to make sure the coast was clear; then she, Erin Thompson, Girl #19, class whore, star-crossed lover, daredevil and lackluster cheerleader, made a dash for the other girls.

The assassination of Adrienne Spring, in all simplicity, was going to be quick and efficient.

* * *

"I want to stand up to her", Shyla Ryals (Girl #16) said solemnly. "I want to do it right now".

Amber Prescott (Girl #13) nodded thoughtfully, not really listening and trying to stomach her lunch. She wasn't sure what it was exactly, but as far as vague definitions went, it was some kind of crustacean they'd found wandering by the shoreline. It was some kind of red-clawed crab, and when they'd approached it, it had stopped dead in its tracks and just sat there in the sand. Amber had been a little hesitant when it came to killing it – feeling remorse when she finished off anything larger than a fly – but Shyla had just taken in a deep sigh, closed her eyes and scooped it up from the soil with her sweaty palms. Then she'd cracked it in half like nothing and offered half of it to Amber. A little reluctantly, Amber had accepted it and started to gnaw on it with aching teeth. It hadn't tasted good at all; no, in fact it had been pretty tough to stomach if you didn't hold your nose to force it down. Amber had been dimly remind of her Aunt Pat's cooking at family get-togethers; the cooking which had become a regular joke among the Prescotts for her flamboyant recipes and inability to make anything taste anywhere close to good. Amber had thought about those memories for a bit, almost like gravestones in a cemetery, and then she'd started to feel sad.

"God bless this little guy, let's eat", Shyla had said in one breath. "Amen".

"Yep", Amber had said back, not really knowing what to feel anymore. "Amen".

They'd ate their raw crab solemnly, neither of them speaking for what seemed like a good hour but was probably only twenty minutes. Amber had eaten the crab well, ignoring the acrid, bitter taste of salty meat and bone as she pondered her thoughts. For the last few hours, she'd been fantasizing – that had always been her personal way of dealing with things. It went hand-in-hand with the constant realization that she was probably going insane, but she let the fantasies come. They took her mind off her troubles. One minute she was at the prom, having actually made it to her senior year to enjoy it rather than being condoned to death, and the next she was with her cousins at the family reunion they'd had a few years back. Life was pleasant. Life was good. Life was precious.

But then the dream came. _That fucking dream…._

About an hour ago, she'd dosed off and ended up back home at one of the town football games, high at the top of the victory pyramid with the other cheerleader piled underneath her, when she'd watched a large airline plane nose-dive right into the bleachers. There hadn't been any fire – in fact, there'd been absolutely no reaction at all. Everyone in the crowd had been watching her with their bright smiles and eyes like coliseum specters, surveying her at the top of the period and clapping like they'd never seen anything like it. They didn't even realize that there was a gaping hole in the bleachers behind them where the plane plowed through, dragging down a few of the spectators with it. The dream had scared her – the worst part was that she didn't even know why.

And then Shyla's words had come just then, frightening her even more. '_I want to stand up to her…" _she'd said.

"Okay", Amber said. She popped the last scrap of crab into her mouth. "Let's think something up then".

"Are you okay?" Shyla asked with her eyebrows perked. "I mean, I don't want to try the whole charge of the light maneuver unless I know you're up for it. Last time we tried to get out of here somebody died. Why should we take that risk again?"

"I'm fine", Amber sighed. "Just a little spooked."

"If it's about the crab, I'm sorry okay? I couldn't stand looking at you starve out here. It's not like we have any bread left either."

"It's not about the fucking crab", Amber said with a smile. "I'm past that. The thing's dead and we're not."

"Well, I only killed it because I had to", Shyla said. "I mean, I kind of felt like it creeped you out, so I'm sorry there. Want some water?"

"Do we have any bottled left?"

"Only salt", Shyla said with a grimace. "Just salt my friend, and that's not going to change anytime soon. We shouldn't have drank all of the good water they gave us. You're not even supposed to drink salt water – my mom always said that it was bad for you if you ever got stranded on an island or something. She's a nurse, you know. It doesn't quench your thirst. It just makes you-

"Slow down, Shy", Amber said with a smile. "You'll hurt yourself."

Shyla smirked. "Am I rambling again?"

"Looks like it."

They sat there for a second, the silence between them deafening, before they burst into girlish laughter; the sun suddenly let off a flare of light and the trees in the forest whistled like rustling whispers. Amber looked over at her friend with her smirk still on her face. It was hard to see, but Shyla's health – mental and physical – was deteriorating just as quickly as hers. Her face was hollowed to the bone and there were dark bags under her eyes, almost like she hadn't slept since they'd gotten to the island – and as far as Amber could tell, she hadn't. Whenever Amber had dosed off to an uncomfortable sleep on the sand dune, she'd always woken up to see Shyla gazing out at the see; the next time it had been Shyla staring out at the other side of the beach at Adrienne's campsite, her eyes unnervingly blank as she hummed some old bouncy tune to herself. Possibilities were narrowing down in her eyes. Shyla Ryals was either plotting or going insane. For the later, Amber was slowly coming to the realization that she didn't care. She was going insane too, so there was perfect kinship there. _But the first one…_

Amber shuddered, hoping that the conversation wouldn't come back to them turning against Adrienne. It wouldn't lead to an escape – hell, with her leg infected and fatigue wearing in for both of them. She wasn't some kind of heroine in a bad adventure story. She was a cheerleader. She wasn't a refugee. She was homecoming queen. It was like looking through a smudged glass wall at a life you could never live. Shyla could go ahead and live it, but not her. The old Amber was dead and she knew it – if she looked in the water, she'd see a starved and beaten girl that looked like she belonged in some kind of concentration camp scrapbook rather than a high school yearbook. The pieces just didn't fit anymore. _Shy might be cut out for another escape. Maybe even a good one. But you're sure as hell not…._

"I can't believe after a day and a half of hell", Amber began. "You still have the guts to make a run for it".

"I'm a dreamer", Shyla said with a grin. "Of course, I'm not the only one with guts here, so don't put yourself down. Remember at that Christian youth camp awhile back when Adrienne tried to put the blame on you for making Maria Corgliado cry?"

"Yeah", Amber remembered suddenly. She'd forgotten all about it. Those times were starting to feel like they didn't even matter anymore. "Yeah, I stood up for myself. Probably the only time I did when it comes to Adrienne. I told the counselors that she was the one who did it and then Adrienne got her ass sent home".

"Was she mad?"

"I can't remember", Amber said quietly. "I must have been scared, because I remember that I didn't want to leave camp. I didn't want to go back home and have to see her. Let me tell you Shy, life's a mess".

"I hear you there", Shyla said. "Sure you're leg's okay?"

"I might be able to walk for a bit", Amber replied. "but only if I put my mind to it. If she catches up with us, I'm a goner".

"We gotta find a way around that then", Shyla said. She paused. "Y'know, It's all like a chess board if you think about it. We're all a bunch of pawns moving around and being taken out one by one".

"I'm not sure if that's how you play chess. I think there's more to it than that".

"I'm a cheerleader", Shyla said solemnly. "The furthest I've sunken down from that is the debate team, and I just did that to get my GPA up. The chess club really never called me down if you know what I mean".

"I hear ya", Amber said with a grin. "Still, can't you admit that's kind of a weird analogy?"

"No. In fact, I think it's the most natural thing in the world. Everything's weird out here anyway – maybe we're both weird and we just don't know it.

"Well, I've been having a real weird idea", Amber said. "Want to hear it?"

"Shoot".

"Well. I think that maybe this whole game is just like real life. When you enter it it's like being born, and as you go through the game, everyone rises and falls around you; then at the same time you meet people that influence and change your decisions. Then when the game's over, only the strongest survive". She paused for a minute, utterly unsure of herself. Then she said, "Sorry. That probably came out really stupid…"

"No it didn't", Shyla said quietly. "The only thing you got wrong is that this isn't a game. This is real life and we're fucked if we don't figure a way out of this mess. We just have to strategize. Logic always works, Amber. People might tell you it doesn't, but it does. We can get through this".

"I really don't understand how your spirit isn't broken yet", Amber sighed.

"Life's a highway", Shyla said with a big smile. "And I'm gonna ride it all night long. And you know what, Amber? You can go tell Adrienne Spring to politely go fuck herself".

"Such language", Amber said, smiling back, but then she saw there wasn't any reason to be the least bit happy. Shyla was slipping into one of her moments again, the lighthearted conversation they'd drifted into completely forgotten. Her mind was full of thoughts, and as far as Amber was concerned, not all thoughts were good.

"It's time", Shyla said. "You're sick of this too, aren't you? She thinks she's so high and mighty – she thinks she can pick us off just like flies just because she doesn't see us as people. You want to know why? Huh? Do you want to know why?"

"Sure Shy…."

"It's because she's scared. She's just as scared as the rest of us. Hell, this is like a big boiling pot here. Real pressure-cooker situation. Nobody really knows how they'll react to stuff like this until they're in it. Adrienne's not insane – she just thinks she is because it gives her a sense of superiority. She thinks being nuts is a reason to distance yourself. She loves the game – she likes killing and she didn't realize it until she woke up here".

"You're rambling again, Shyla…"

"I don't care", Shyla spat. "I get like that when I'm angry, but I don't care at all! This isn't some fucking debate thing anymore! This is real life Amber, and we're going to die if we don't do something. Don't you get it Amber? We're going to die unless we think something up. Doesn't that affect you at all?"

"It does", Amber said quietly. "but-

"Then let's do it", Shyla said bitterly. "Let's kill her. Let's get back at her for what she did to Tori. I know you're scared of her. Hell, I am too. I know how it feels – she gets under your skin after awhile. But we could get her easy. Just trust me". She paused. "I…I just want this to end for good. I don't want to have to feel like this anymore. You're my best friend, Amber. I don't want to see you like this either…"

Amber stared at her for a moment, caught between words and really not knowing what to say next. She wanted to tell Shyla how she didn't want to be alone - how she didn't want to see her friends and reasons for living vanish even faster. It somehow got lost halfway to her mouth and she was left gaping. The trees kept rustling behind them, whispering and eavesdropping on their planning. Cupping her hands over the lid of her eyes, she gazed out at Adrienne's makeshift campsite. She was staring out at the sea again and resting on the sand, her water bottle sitting loosely at her side. It was a bizarre thing to notice, but despite the complete lack of hygiene or any connections to the real world in the last couple of days, Adrienne's hair still looked picture-perfect. It was odd to notice, and it made absolutely no sense in the long-run, but it was something that scared her. Attacking someone like her – or even making attempt – would be like trying to win a fight with your own shadow. _Maybe you can't kill her…._

"She's only human", Shyla said, seemingly reading her thoughts. "We could do it. I want to go over there and spit in her face."

"If you spit in her face, she'll shoot yours. She has a pistol you know."

"We could take her easy! All we have to do is catch her off-guard and-

"HEY GUYS!"

The two of them both turned at once. The voice was familiar and it had come from the line of trees behind them.

* * *

Adrienne Spring (Girl #17) was listening to them in a half-hearted kind of effort, not fully making out what they were saying but getting the overall gist of it. It was getting too hard to think anyway – the beach was hot and just the feeling of your bare feet in the sand was like stepping on a hot griddle. The sun was a scorcher and her complexion was more or less ruined now. Her makeup clouded her face in a hot sheet of oil and her nose was greased like lathered butter. She pricked her finger up to the side of her nostril, feeling her nose slide right off the slippery skin. _Disgusting._ The sun flared and dazed her again and she winced. _Delirious yet? _Probably - but as far as she cared, that was a good thing; if she was insane, it gave her a sense of accomplishment. _One more step, Adrienne, that's one more step, isn't it?_

She hummed Thurston Harris's, "Little Bitty Pretty One", to herself as she gazed out across the ocean. The beat relaxed her, and if anything, it kept her patient. Especially for the boat. The boat had become her reason for living, the symbol of the depravity and constant planning that embodied the island's spirit. Everything was falling into place, almost perfectly, with only a few minor mishaps. Erin had run out on her and Shyla wasn't going to leave Amber. The later had been a bit tough to deal with, considering she'd planned it from the beginning, but it was more-or-less expendable. She's deal with both of them, and in the end, Shyla's decision was Shyla's decision.

"_That baby can't be blessed"_, Adrienne thought. "_until she finally sees she's like all the rest. With her fog, her amphetamine, and her pearls_…."

She couldn't be insane yet. Absolutely no way. Adrienne wasn't a schizophrenic. Adrienne wasn't bipolar. In fact, she wasn't anything she pretended to be other than a foster child, and there were even parts of that that were far-fetched. To bring all of that into consideration though, she did happen to be a liar. Definitely not a compulsive one, but one who would lie only when it suited her own personal gain. She made up stories in her head sometimes. Some were about her; others were about the people around her. It made life a little more uppity in her opinion. If there wasn't any excitement in life, it was just gossiping and football games and cheerleading. _Bleh…_

But lying. Lying was just as much of an accomplishment as convincing yourself that you were insane in a time of crisis. Lying was what gave her control. _And she can't be blessed. Not at all. Until she sees she's like all the rest. She-_

Adrienne heard something. She looked over toward the other side of the beach.

There was somebody else with the other girls now. She was jogging over, her hand raised heartedly in the air with a great big smile on her face. The girl's face registered in her memory in an instant and Adrienne's nails clawed into the thick sand. She was back. Erin Thompson actually had the nerve to come back. The cunt had run out on her, probably off to go screw some one night-stand in the woods, but now she actually had the guts to come back! _And for Christ sake, she's smiling! She's actually smiling!_

"Oh, you gotta be shitting me", Adrienne growled.

She got up started to walk toward the other campsite, her pistol held in a tight and grip. She didn't hurry though. Slow and steady won the race after all; and from a certain standpoint, and coupled with what would unfold in the next few minutes, some could say that the race was just about to begin.

* * *

"Erin!" Amber cried excitedly. "You came back!"

"Sure did", Erin Thompson (Girl #19) said quietly. "And man, you guys have no idea how good it feels to sit down…"

She slowed down her jog into a brisk walk as she got closer to the dune. There was a strange aura around her, and for just a second, Amber had the hysterical idea to touch her to see if she was real. Mirages were possible in the desert, so what was saying they couldn't happen on a sun-scorched beach? Erin could have been a façade – maybe even an afterthought and further proof that the heat of the moment was getting to both her and Shyla. Maybe that would've made more sense.

But Erin was there, and alive at that. She sat down beside them quietly and Amber immediately noticed the pistol that she placed down in her lap. That wasn't the only thing she noticed either. Erin looked more like a ghost than a person – her face was swollen with ash and the flesh under it had gone ghastly pale, almost like somebody who'd just been pulled out of a burning building. There was a burn wound on her neck that looked like pickled, bloodied skin, but that really wasn't what got Amber.

_What really got her was-_

"Christ!" Shyla cried. "What happened to your legs, Erin?"

They were swollen red and looked like burned and scalded meat that had been speckled with metal. Her left ankle was notably bad and the skin had gotten a yellowish tint to it, almost like the layer of acidic fat and bodily fluids behind it was trying to break through. The metal shrapnel was clinging both on the surface of her skin and under it, giving it strange transparent feel like you were looking at a human body exhibit at a museum. It was a wonder that she could still walk on them.

"That Adam Spencers kid shot a grenade and lit me on fire", Erin said quickly. She said it like she'd fallen down and scraped her knee. "Put it out with some wet leaves. Anyway, that's beside the point. I can still walk on them if I don't put too much pressure on my left leg. How have you guys been?"

"We're alive if that's what you mean", Amber said quietly. She paused for a second. "Jesus, I thought you were dead Erin. We both did. I can't believe you came back".

"Likewise", Erin said, her smile stretching ear-to-ear. "I mean, I'm not even sure how I'm alive. You guys okay?'

"I really don't know", Shyla sighed. "It's hard to tell anymore. Amber's leg's pretty bad. I started filling it up with salt water to disinfect it. I think….I think I might've just made it worse…"

"Ah fuck it then", Erin said. "I shouldn't have expected any luck. You guys got any water left?"

"Nope", Shyla said. "Fresh out. But don't just drop in like nothing happened, Erin. You definitely saw something out there. Fill us in".

A dead kind of air hung between them for a second, silent and uninviting. Then, offering her cynical smile that both amused and saddened Amber and Shyla, she began to tell the tale of what had happened; she told them about wandering aimlessly through the forest after making a break for it; how she had come about running into the complicated persona of David Rodriguez; how their reunion had been cut abruptly short when the world collapsed into flames at the tram station. She then finished it off by telling them how she'd nearly been obliterated near the decrepit place that the slowly-declining mess of Adam Spencers would see fit to call The Bughouse. Erin didn't look at them as she spoke. She just stared down at the sand and weaved her pistol through it in intricate lines. The other girls were eerily reminded of a widow waiting for her dead husband to return on shore leave

"So David's dead?" Amber said. Her eyes were wide. "David Rodriguez?"

"I don't know any other Davids here", Erin said. Her eyes were red and slanted; her mouth pursed and her face pale and clammy. It looked like she'd cried herself dry of tears. "I tried to get him out in time but, well, there was just too much going on to see straight. The fire was everywhere. Smoke was flying out of the station like a chimney. I…I think Miguel might have died too but I'm not really sure. I made a run for it, y'know?"

"And Nathan did it", Shyla said in awe. "I mean, of all people-

"I'm really happy to see you guys", Erin said. "But really, I don't want to talk about this anymore. I'm still trying to take it in. Besides, I didn't come here to tell you guys a ghost story about my stupid love life".

Amber stared. "Then why did you come back?"

That was when Erin smiled at her again; it was a smile even stranger than the last one. Instead of looking like the ghostly widow she had only minutes ago, there was now a flash of mystery in Erin's eyes: a flash of power. And for just that second, maybe even a fraction of a millisecond in actual time, all three of the girls felt the power. The sun drifted over the trees for a second and the beach's light dimmed, giving the whole ordeal an otherworldly feel. Erin tightened her grip on the pistol and held it out so all the girls could see it.

"I got this at the station", she said quietly. "And I came back so I could-

Then a new voice cut in behind them and finished for her:

"Kill me", said Adrienne Spring, Girl #17.

She stood before the three girls gathered in the sand and now pointed her own pistol – a Colt M1911 – down at them and clicked it off safety. The sound was a metallic clink; piercing and haunting, almost an epitome for death. But none of that mattered in the big picture. In the mind of Adrienne Spring, the big picture was coming closer and closer every second and she didn't need any riff-raff like this to bring her plan down like an anchor. Holding the pistol steady, she swished her tongue around in her mouth, wishing that she hadn't chewed up all of her gum. It helped her think, and right now, Adrienne needed to do a lot of thinking. _Amber, Shyla or Erin. Three-wheel roulette. Who should go first? Can't get Amber just yet. That would ruin the bigger picture. But there's still Shyla and the runaway cunt…._

All three of the girls gathered in front of her had a different reaction to her sudden arrival. Amber's jaw dropped and she emitted a strange, squealing sound. Shyla glared and locked eyes with her. Erin nearly jumped out of her skin and fumbled with her pistol, bewildered and caught in a state of panic. She listened to all of them carefully and smiled. All the reactions were good, but coupled together, it was music to her ears. _Can't be blessed. Til' she's like all the rest…._

"So", Adrienne said, almost pleasantly. "Decided to drop by for a visit, huh Thompson? Decided to stir up some trouble?"

"It's…it's over, Adrienne", Erin stammered. "I'm leaving with them".

She raised the pistol up in what seemed like a blink of an eye, but with even logic ceasing to matter on the island now, it wasn't quick enough. Adrienne's pistol swished through the air and aimed itself accurately at Erin's temple. Her eyes widened in shock, her body leaning back and cowering slightly, but she didn't flinch with the pistol at all. They were two newly born gunslingers in the old west, neither of them willing to back down until the very final seconds of their lives. They locked eyes – neither of them blinked.

"Fire yours and I fire mine", Adrienne said simply. "It's elementary. Take your pick. Put the gun down".

"I'm not putting it down, Adrienne", Erin spat. "Blow my brains out if you have to".

Amber looked onward in horror. "Erin, stop it!"

"Actually", said Adrienne, her big lips pursing into an unpleasant grin. "I think Erin's in way over her head. None of you have the guts to kill me and you do it. I think it's pretty clear who the real murderer is now anyway".

"_You killed Tori!"_ Amber howled. _"You shot her dead, you heartless cunt!"_

"Then put the gun down", Adrienne said simply. "And maybe I won't kill you too. You deserve it for running out on me, you little tramp. When your friends need you, you don't go out to rut around with some boy like a bitch in heat".

"It was my choice", Erin replied. "It was the right one too, and trust me, that's something I'll take to the grave if I have to".

Adrienne smirked. "Then why don't you?"

Erin's mouth opened for a second and she seemed to stammer, caught between words and unsure of what to say. The gun was shaking in her hands and rocking uncontrollably, her finger at the edge of pulling the trigger. On the other side, so was Adrienne's. With the two guns facing eachother, it was the standoff to the highest degree; a shot where one lived and the other died; a meticulous shot, in short, that neither wanted to take.

_"Wait until she's offguard",_ Amber thought. _"Then shoot her. C'mon Erin, just get us out of here"._

The four of them only dimly heard the churning sound of frothing water in the ocean, followed by the overwhelming sound of ludicrous cheering. The boat full of bidders was slowly peeking around the bend again, and at the sight of what would possibly be real carnage, they all began to cheer uproariously in a thundering cry of obscenities and catcalls. Amber was really the only one that took notice of them though. Her heart beating fast and feeling like the world was moving in play-by-play action, she turned and gazed out at that boat. The deck was high above them and filled with sweaty white collar guys in business suits, all of them climbing over each other to get a decent view. _We're living in a jungle. _Quickly turning back to the disaster that was unfolding in front of her, she turned to Shyla, pleading in the back of her mind for her friend to make things better – or at least make them make sense. _Make me understand it. You always do. Just make it better.._

But Shyla didn't look ready to explain anything. Her expression was melancholy, thoughtful and she glanced at Adrienne like a painting at a museum, almost bemused by why was happening. Her words earlier slowly came back to haunt Amber: _I want to stand up to her. I want to spit in her face…_

She sat there and listened to the voice, becoming increasingly aware that something was about happen. They might as well have been communicating telepathically at that moment. Amber might as well have heard that final notice – that guaranteed death sentence – being sent over subliminally like a mental post card. _Everything will be fine, Amber. You'll see. Everything will come out fine in the end. It's like a chess board, remember? You just gotta make the right moves and you're fine…_

The facts were simple, elementary. Shyla Ryals, Girl #16, was finally read to stand up for herself.

"We're not scared of you, Adrienne", Shyla said without standing up.

Adrienne's eyes glanced up at her for a second before switching back to Erin, only vaguely interested in the girl that she considered only a minor threat.

"Is that true?" Adrienne said. "What made you think you needed to be scared of me?"

"Is this what you're going to do, Adrienne?" Shyla continued. "I get you, you know. I mean, I've finally figured it out. You've been lying to us. You're just as scared as the rest of us but you have to act all high and mighty just because you're afraid of getting close to people. You've always had that problem – you just didn't realize it was this bad until now. Admit it, Adrienne. You hate yourself just as much as we hate you".

"Hey, shut up, Ryals!"

"Like hell I will", Shyla spat. "I'm picking you apart piece by piece even if the world ends".

"You don't know anything about me", Adrienne said. "Stop trying".

"You're alienating yourself! That's all you're doing with all of this! Ever hear of love? You can't feel it! Fuck all of your bullshit about being crazy! You're not, Adrienne! You're just as sane as the rest of us, but unlike you, we don't feel the need to pick off our friends just because we see it as the easy way to deal with things. It's pretty clear you lied to us, Adrienne – why don't we start from square one and work our way up? Why did you kill Victoria Jenkins?"

"She got in the way", Adrienne said. Her voice was soft now and not the least bit threatening. "The….the bigger picture…"

"Adrienne, the bigger picture's a fucking joke and so are you. You killed her because you saw something in her that you knew you didn't have in yourself. It might be a hard concept for you to understand, but in our world, we have something called compassion for other people. Instead of destroying what we don't understand, we learnt to live with it. We move on and grow – some of us don't make it but we all change for the better. We get influenced and that's just how life works in the long run. And then there's you, Adrienne. Someone who's never felt anything besides wishing she was like everyone else. Someone who's been waiting for an opportunity like this her whole life!"

"Shyla stop!" Amber cried. "You're getting her mad!"

"Like hell she is!" Adrienne roared, but it was no use now. Her eyes were wet with tears and she was struggling to regain her composure. The veil that she'd casted over herself was deteriorating slowly and she knew the other girls could see her for who she really was. They could see every imperfection like the dismantling of a complex machine. Under her own skin, Adrienne knew there was nothing but a grimy layer of slime. A disgust. _But you're past that! You can't think like that! It's easier to blame everyone else! It's-_

"I'm not going to stop", Shyla said calmly, and then that was when she started to stand up. Rising up from the sand to an admittedly short height of 5'3, she locked eyes with Adrienne and didn't break her glance. And that was them: two polar opposites locking eyes like an ancient ritual and staring each other down, one girl a vivacious one with dark hair and the other chubby and cherubic with hair curls. The pistol was still pointed at Shyla's chest, but for some reason, she was starting to feel a world away from it, almost like pulling the trigger would emit nothing but hot air. All that mattered was exposing the truth. _Just like a debate…_

"You don't scare me anymore, Adrienne", Shyla continued. "You might think you can go through life without anyone standing up to you. Hell, there's people like that walking over us every day, and they end up being the reason things like this fucking game happens. If you put two people together, they'll form a society. There were five of us, and look what happened there. We ate each other from the inside out and it's all because of you…"

"Shut up", Adrienne said. It sounded more like a whimper now. "You…you don't know shit about me, Shyla. S-s-sit down and mayb-

"No", Erin Thompson muttered suddenly. "Not today".

And that was when she stood up too. Tightening her grip and still pointing her own pistol, she rose to her feet with her ash-smeared face shining in the sun like a crypt keeper. She aimed it at Adrienne's chest with a snarl on her face that embodied everything the girls had gone through in the last day and a half. In what seemed like half a second, Adrienne's pistol switched targets from Shyla to Erin. It was a standoff to the highest degree now. Someone pull the trigger. _All we need is one gunfire and it's a full-blown massacre…_

"Shyla's right", Erin spat. "I came here to kill you and that's just what I feel inclined to do. You're finished".

"Well, what about Amber?" Adrienne snapped. "Huh Prescott? What about you? Are you going to get up too and join in on this shit-fest revolution too?"

Amber was still slumped on the ground with her infected leg slumped involuntarily at her side. She stared at them with a shell-shocked expression on her face but didn't say anything; she didn't even move, and if anything, that was the reassuring thing of all. If you kept the bitch away from the rest of the litter, they wouldn't have the proper nutrition – then the whole lot would just die out. _She's still down. Keep your cool, girl. You're still the queen here. You could wipe them all out in one stroke. No sweat…_

"I thought so", Adrienne spat with her eyes wild. "I knew you didn't have the guts. You couldn't pull the trigger on me even if you had a gun. You're no different than Erin".

Her finger was trembling on her own trigger now, coated in sweat and shaking with the constant promise to spit out a bullet at any minute. The veil was collapsing and her lies were coming out, and if they all flushed out _(god-forbid-god-forbid…)_ then she'd lose control. _And then it's all down the drain. All of this for nothing…_

"Don't talk to her", Shyla said. "Don't even look at her. We're not finished with you".

Adrienne's lip quivered. "Shut up, Shyla…."

"No, Adrienne, I won't. I won't shut up. It's funny if you think this is a revolution, because it's not. It's just the three of us willing to stand up to you. You've fooled yourself into thinking that you're the only one in the world that's capable of getting hurt – you really think you're the only person that can feel anything, don't you? But that's where the problem is. You're too scared to feel anything".

"Shut up, Shyla…"

"It's all a matter of seeing the truth", Shyla said, her eyes gleaming. "When you look at the world, you see it that everyone's out to get you. We're all scared, but instead of just admitting that this is wrong, you want to rewrite society. This is what you've always wanted, Adrienne – your own society. This beach is your private, little world. And instead of waiting around to see it crash and burn, we're going to get out while we still can".

Adrienne's lip was in an unpleasant sneer now. "Shut up, Shyla…"

"It's all over", Shyla cried in triumph. "I figured you out and it's all-

"SHUT THE FUCK UP!"

The stand-off ended abruptly when one of the pistols – Adrienne's – fired in a coruscation of light and a thunderous bang of gun smoke. With the feeling of triumph vanishing just as quickly as it had arrived, the girls all shrieked and stumbled backwards in their spots, all of them wondering frantically on the spur of the moment if they were about to be shot; and as it turned out – in that small fraction of time between revolution and gunshot – one of them surely had.

Amber's eyes widened. "SHYLA, GET YOUR HEA-

It was too late. The bullet grazed across the side of Shyla Ryals's face and spit off a froth of blood that splashed like rose petals. Skin went flying like loose fabric in a sowing shop, clearly exposing a patch of bloody flesh on her sweaty face. Only scraped but suddenly feeling like she was on the verge of a heart attack, Shyla screamed and collapsed backwards onto her bottom, holding her face in her palms and screaming her mind out.

"_MY ACEEEE",_ she screamed._ "SHE 'URT MY ACEEEEE!"_

And so from the aforementioned standpoint, this was when the race really started.

* * *

Adrienne Spring (Girl #17) was suddenly out for blood. Every reason she had for living – every building block that she based the cogs and mental gears of her life off of – was coming apart like a slowly crumbling foundation. Shyla's words had hurt to the core – not just because they'd been insulting, but because they'd been undeniably true. She'd tested her and taken the risk, and then - more than anything - she thought that she'd actually won. _What did she say? Something about a society? Buncha people?_

But none of that stood on solid ground anymore. Breathing hard and feeling her eyes burn from the gun smoke in her eyes, she was only vaguely aware of the maniacal screaming all around her. She heard the sound of the boat moving slowly through the water a few yards off, and she also heard the thunderous roar of every passenger cheering, but none of that mattered; it was all just white noise that distilled into the background. Shyla Ryals had exposed her; Shyla Ryals had questioned her; more than anything though, Shyla Ryals had disheveled the truth out of her like she'd finally found a lost coat in a wardrobe.

"_When something doesn't make sense",_ Adrienne thought dully._ "Whenever something makes you mad, you just get rid of it…"_

She looked down at the other girls with her eyes still burning. Shyla was sprawled out on the ground and frantically massaging her face, sobbing and mixing her tears in with a mess of blood and sandy grime. She looked like trash that had washed up on the shore. Amber was where she always was: slumped out on the ground on her infected leg and howling into the sky about everything that was going on. The girl that had once had the best yearbook pictures in the grade was a ghost of herself now and now she was crawling feebly over to Shyla on her working leg, struggling to get her to open her hands so she could get a look at her swollen face._ And there's Erin. Don't forget about Erin. As a matter of fact, where is Er-_

"HEY ADRIENNE!"

Adrienne turned and only heard a loud crack before a pressure like a burning needle grazed by her shoulder. The bullet spit through a layer of skill and chipped the bone, causing her to howl and hunch her neck to the side; then blood spilled down the side of her shirt as she fidgeted like a hunchback. Looking up with only the dazed realization that a bullet had just grazed by her shoulder and taken off a chunk of skin, she glanced up wearily to see Erin Thompson holding a pistol spurting out gun smoke like a train whistle.

"_They think they know what they're doing",_ Adrienne thought wildly. _"They think they're at the top of the game now, do they?"_

It all happened so fast after that. Her head still hunched toward her shoulder, Adrienne leapt forward and howled a scream of beastly adrenaline. Part of her wanted to fall to the ground and lay there, but if anything, that would make her like the rest of them. _That would make her human. _Flying out like an expert acrobat, she grabbed Erin by the cuff of her shirt and swatted the pistol from her grasp in one stroke. Then, her eyes glowing and her lip twitching, she leveled her fist hard into Erin's gut and pressed it in like deflating hot air. Swinging back again, she punched her hard in the face with all the power she had left in her. Blood fell down through the air like loose spittle and spare teeth flew up like white pearls. _Raining people. It's raining people today…_

"THINK YOU CAN RUN AWAY FROM ME, HUH?" Adrienne roared. "THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS TO NO-GOOD RUNAWAY TRAMPS LIKE YOU!"

As Erin collapsed to the ground with a moan, Adrienne turned her focus to the other perpetrator in her beach society: the other bad seed that had unfortunately gone against the bigger picture and disrupted her plan like a single gear stopping inside a clock. This seed was none other than Shyla Ryals. _She exposed you. Thought she knew about you. Teach her, you gotta teach her good. _She gazed down at the ground and smirked, heartily bemused at the sight of Amber hunched over her friend like a deathbed, struggling to stop the flow of sunlit blood pouring from the wound on her face. _Gotta keep Amber. She's not just part of the bigger picture – she's the whole damn thing. But then there's the other one. The runt of the litter. Got to finish her off…_

Adrienne grinned and said, "Hey Shyla".

She raised the pistol and pointed it down at the bawling whore on the ground. Right when she was at the verge of pulling the trigger and spitting out a bullet that would have conveniently ended the life of Shyla Ryals once and for all. What happened instead was what Adrienne would later label as a minor inconvenience: Amber saw her. Glancing up from her bleeding friend to the pistol, Amber's eyes enlarged; then she rolled to the side and dragged Shyla with her, barely avoiding the shot. The bullet spit into the beach floor and sand flew up in a mist of smoke.

"YOU'RE FUCKING CRAZY!" Amber roared.

"I don't care what you have to say, Amber", Adrienne said simply. "This isn't about you, and with that leg of yours, I don't think you want this to be about you either. I could finish you off easy, and unlike some people, you're smart enough to keep your mouth shut. I find some merit in that. This isn't your time to go anyway – it's hers".

"GET UP, SHY!' Amber shrieked. "RUN! GET OUT OF HERE!"

She grabbed her friend's shoulders struggled to force her up onto her feet. All in all though, it was like trying to pull a tree out of the ground by its roots. Amber was brittle and weakened while Shyla was overweight and deteriorating like something left out in the hot sun for days. She tugged on her shoulder and tried to shift her body weight up – almost like shaping a mound of clay – to no avail whatsoever.

"Can't", Shyla coughed. "Ace' urts'…"

"YOU HAVE TO GET UP, SHY!" Amber screamed. "SHE HAS A GUN!"

"You people", Adrienne said. "Are very, very stupid".

Then she raised the pistol into the air again where the metal gleamed in the sunlight like the scythe of a reaper. It had all unfolded over the span of minutes – maybe even less – but it was all dragging out and becoming a representation of everything they'd endured since the game began. Adrienne's eyes narrowed and she carefully aimed the pistol back toward Shyla's exposed head, angling the shot and imagining the image of her brains exiting neatly through the back of her skull. _Fuck her logic. Fuck her. It's all wrong. It's all-_

And then something happened:

"Ace' hurts", Shyla muttered. "I gotta get er', Amber. Gotta et' er good…"

In that split second before Adrienne pulled the trigger, Shyla forced herself up onto her knees and rolled to her side. The bullet ended up wayward and skidded down into the sand like the previous one, this time skimming by Amber's ear and barely missing ending her life. Even though the focus was hardly on her any more, Adrienne suddenly felt more distaste for Amber Prescott than she ever had in her life. She pictured Amber Prescott with her middle school parties and ditzy smile; Amber Prescott growing up and getting pregnant early; Amber Prescott selling herself out in the streets out in that cesspool they called the real world.

"I gotta et' her", Shyla said again. "I gotta et' her…"

Adrienne's thoughts were disrupted when she saw one of the most surprising sights yet. Shyla was now bowled out on her knees and staring down at the sand, gradually forcing herself up onto her feet with the blood dripping from her face. In a hysterical sense, it was a moment of human achievement to paint. A moment where desire and endurance worked together to keep the body going. Moaning and gritting her teeth, Shyla Ryals rose to her shaking feet and looked around at the world, bewildered and confused.

Time stood still.

Adrienne raised the pistol again.

Amber cried, "SHYLA RUN!"

Then she nudged Shyla's foot softly with her working leg in a last effort to get her moving. Even if it was the slightest touch possible, it worked. Blinking and looking like she'd just awoken from a coma, Shyla looked at Adrienne in terror and began to run down the beach like a runner in a sun-scorched marathon. Her arms flailed up and down and she started to scream things that Amber and Adrienne only somewhat picked up.

"FIGURED YOU OUT!" Shyla shrieked in her bloody rasp. "FUCKING FIGURED YOU OUT, YOU BITCH!"

There was another moment in time where nobody did anything.

Then Adrienne Spring glared, steadied her pistol for a clean shot, and started running after her.

* * *

"GET OUT, SHYLA! RUN!"

The bullet whizzed by her head like a hornet. Dazed by the harsh sunlight and feeling more afraid than ever before, Shyla ran in an awkward side-step down the beach, unclear of where she wanted to go. She definitely wanted to leave – that was common sense after all – but that was really the last thing on her mind when it came to first instinct. The other girls were still at the beach, and if she left, they would be alone. She'd be dead, sure, but then they'd be alone too. _But that's not logical. Never was, never will be. God, please don't let Amber have to watch this…._

She wasn't thinking clearly anymore; she knew it too. All logic had gone down the drain. Her mind wandered and she ran with the sun blaring on her back, her feet burned with blisters and the back of her weathered neck lathered with sweat. She heard the footsteps thudding into the beach behind her and the pistol cracked again, this time spraying into the beach shooting up a spindrift of sand that brushed against her ankles. Feeling a wave of fear – and realizing she'd underestimated her great fascination of what came after death – she started to push herself faster, her overweight legs aching and straining from the pressure like hundreds of burning strings under her skin. Her tendons were on fire.

"RUN FASTER, SHY! KEEP RUNNING! SHE'S GETTING CLOSER!"

Amber's immobile cries were interrupted by another shot. This one was a direct hit. Shyla felt like a small pellet had rocketed clearly through her leg. She collapsed to the ground in agony, the blood spraying out of the bullet hole in her thigh. A knob of white bone, even brighter than the white sand, shone through the crack of skin. Shyla howled and pulled herself across the tropical hell, her eyes tearing and a line of saliva dripping from the corner of her mouth. The shoreline was only several feet away. _Water. God, that's good…_

Not even knowing what she was doing anymore, Shyla dragged herself raggedly toward the shoreline, hoping in some way that defied the laws of physics to confuse Adrienne Spring. Clawing herself into the beach and pulling her bloody stump of a leg with her, she reached the sloshing tide and plunged her face into it, living in that moment of bliss for a second at that moment where the salt water seeped into her word, burning and chlorifying it at the same time. _Then she's on the podium on the debate team again and all the eyes are locked on her. The fluorescent lights dim and she carries out her speech, determined to keep her head above water and maintain control. She's out to twist the system to her whim and expose the truth. She's there to dig up the seedy underbelly. Shyla Ryals, perpetually well-put together in the time of crisis, is determined to prove a point. Even in the very last seconds of her life when she feels the light fading, the determination stays._

"_It's time",_ Shyla thought stubbornly. _"God, it's really time, isn't it?"_

She clawed her hands into the bloody sand and stared up into the sky like a turkey gobbling and waiting for rain; in the corner of her eye, she saw Adrienne approaching with the pistol pointed sideways like an inept rent-a-cop. Her mouth was contorted in rage, and with a smile on her own face, Shyla knows that this only announces her victory. _You've gotten to her. Now for the finishing blow…_

Shyla's muscles strained as she forced herself up from the ground. Her ruined leg sent a wave of pain through her body, but all in all, she didn't care. _This is your moment to shine, you silly girl you_. She steadied herself and felt ragged as she forced her body up onto its knees, almost like a scarecrow with all of the straws spilling out of it. She wretched and vomited into the sand, spitting up white and yellowish paste that could have been the contents of two days worth of saw dusty bread rolls. Her whole body shook like mad, but closing her eyes and gritting her teeth, she made herself rise up into a standing position like a broken-winged bird preparing to take flight.

"This", Shyla muttered. "This…is gonna be good…."

She looked up slowly and saw Adrienne advancing toward her across the sand. Standing up beside the water with the blood draining from her body like a human sponge, she started to scream:

"IS THAT WHAT YOU'RE GONNA DO ALL YOUR LIFE, ADRIENNE?" Shyla Ryals howled, blood bubbling down her face in the hot sun. "JUST DISTANCE EVERYONE YOU CARE ABOUT? SWAT US AWAY LIKE FLIES? IS THAT WHAT YOU'RE GOING TO DO? I'VE FIGURED YOU OUT YOU COLD-HEARTED BITCH! I FIGURED YOU OUT, ADRIENNE! DO IT! PROVE ME RIGHT! IF YOU SHOOT ME THEN I WI-

There was a final, loud crack from the pistol. Shyla's words stopped when a red hole appeared in the center of her forehead. Her jaw dropped dumbly and a thin mixture of blood and brains spurted out like the fizzle of a soda can. A hole opened up faintly in the back of her head and a pink mist – blood, brain and bone – blew out like excess from a porthole. She stood there for a moment, the gore dripping down into the crystal blue water around her, before she fell back with her pudgy arms outstretched to the heavens like an underwater crucifixion.

And so Shyla Ryals, Girl #16, cheerleader, debate team member and ever-present survivor in the face of apocalyptic odds, was now dead.

* * *

"SHHHHHHHY!"

The shot had been loud and the splash had somehow been even louder. Amber watched her best friend fall into the water as still as a statue with her arms outstretched, descending into death quick and efficiently. The light around the beach dimmed for a moment, the sun seeming a universe away, and Amber Prescott suddenly felt that she didn't matter anymore; she was plummeting down into a state of unreality, and more than ever before, she wanted to die. Amber Prescott was insignificant like the tide in the water and the sand blowing into the breeze. _You're nothing. She was something but you're....you're…._

"_God bless this little guy, let us eat, amen",_ Amber's mind echoed deliriously. Her vision clouded over for a moment and she was left sitting there on the beach in the hot sun, her mind denying what she saw in front of her. _There's just no way…._

But it was true, and even if Amber was refusing to accept what she saw in front of her, the facts couldn't have been any clearer now. Shyla Ryals was dead. She sat in the water staring up at the sky with those eyes that couldn't see, a pool of blood forming in the salt water around her and speckling like dazzling sugar in the sun. She thought of everything they'd talked about; about middle school field trips and cheerleading; about drinking ice tea out in her backyard and discussing boys; about how life was a chess board and all the right moves needed to be taken. _But you made the wrong move here, Shy. Your first one too…_

"Shyla", Amber muttered. The way the name rolled off her tongue sounded unreal. She turned over to Erin's semi-conscious body, still slumped over in the sand beside her and facing her with her bluish and bloody face. The punch to the face had been a rough one, and in Amber's mind, she had the cartoony feeling that Erin might have seen stars. _Maybe Shyla did too before she fell…._

"Whaa' happened?" Erin coughed, her eyes slowly opening. "Dihh'….dihh' I get er'?"

"She's gone, Erin", Amber whispered. "She got her. Shyla's dead…

"Dead?"

"Yeah…"

"I fucked up big time, Amber. I'm sorry. You gotta believe me. I didn't want anything bad to happen to you guys…"

"It's not your fault", Amber said softly. "She…she was talking about standing up to her anyway…"

And then she started to cry. It had been a long time ago that she'd actually felt human rather than a picture-perfect yearbook photo, and now all of her emotions seemed to be flushing back like a rinse cycle. She sat there lying in the sand and cried, the reality of the situation crashing in on her that Shyla Ryals, her friend since early grammar school and one of her few true friends in the world, was now dead.

"I'm sorry", Amber sobbed. "It's just that….it's…

"I get it", Erin said quietly. "Believe me, I get it…"

"Thanks Erin…"

"Amber, is she coming?"

* * *

Adrienne Spring (Girl #17) stared at the floating corpse and grinned. _One down. _That was one unfitting variable out of the equation. Now she needed to soothe the other goose bumps. Her hands still sweaty on the grip of the pistol, she looked back to the girls sprawled out on the sand, one's face a swollen mess of blood and the other immobile with an infected ankle.

"_The big plan",_ Adrienne's mind said and she was giddy at the thought.

She cocked the pistol again. Then she started to walk back to the other side of the beach.

She saw her moving like a white silhouette in the sunlight, trudging idly through the sand like some of back road drifter. She was taking her time, maybe even trying to intimidate them, but still, she was coming back. _Just like Shy. She'll get you just like Shy. Then the two of you will be together. Then it'll all make sense again…._

"She's coming", Amber muttered. Her eyes were wide. "She's coming, Erin. She's going back to get us too".

"Then we're getting out of here", Erin said quickly, sitting up from the sand. "Both of us. Together".

"I can't run on my leg", Amber said quietly. "I'll…I'll fall down"

Erin didn't respond. Shaking her head and closing her eyes, she forced herself up from the ground quickly with only the slightest indication of a grimace. A little dazed but still mobile, she grabbed Amber's hand in a tight squeeze and looked into her eyes. Amber paused and stared back for a moment, utterly bemused by the calm intelligence and wise cynicalism. Then she thought of Shyla and realized with grim sorrow that her eyes hadn't been much different.

"I'm going to try to get you out of here", Erin said. "But you got to work with me, okay?"

"Okay…"

"Can you walk?"

"Can you?"

"I'm fine", Erin said. "Just a little shaken up. Grab my hand and don't let go"

"I-

She didn't even let her respond. She shoved her hand under Amber's arm pit and gradually heaved her up into a sitting position. There was a corrosive feel of infection as her leg changed position and Amber howled out in pain, feeling that familiar twinge that her leg was clogged with flammable jelly. Gritting her teeth and too bewildered to even accept the commonplace idea of mourning Shyla Ryals, she could only cringe as Erin slowly hoisted her to her feet. There was that sudden wave of otherworldliness as she rose – then the feeling that she couldn't feel anything in her leg – but it passed and she managed to get up on both feet, leaning on her friend for support. _It's all real….._

"That's it", Erin muttered. "Easy does it".

They started walking in a dazed and awkward side-step, trudging up toward the sloped sand to the trees that spelled out freedom. Opening up an eye that had seemed frozen shut only a moment ago, Amber's blood ran cold when she saw that Adrienne was running toward them now. Her pistol was out and bobbing up in down as she jogged. _That's what she used to kill her…_

"Gotta move faster", Erin said, but there was terror in her voice now. "Gotta move-

A bullet fired and whizzed narrowly by their heads. Both of the girls looked down the beach and saw that she was closer now, holding out the pistol and breaking into a jog down the beach. Her arms were flapping at her side like doves taking flight, and to Amber, she looked in reminisce like one of those arcade video games gone crazy. The wind was blowing her hair in her face, and all in all, she looked like she was having the time of her life._ On a roll, she's on a roll…_

"RUN, RUN, RUN!" Adrienne screamed. "KEEP RUNNING AND WATCH HOW FAR IT GETS YOU!"

"Shoot her", Amber whispered. "Get her good…"

"Clip's dry", Erin said solemnly. "One bullet….didn't think….it was gonna be quick…"

And then just to demonstrate her point as she lugged her toward the woods, she pointed the pistol worthlessly to the ground and pulled the trigger. There was a sound almost akin to a radio crackle and the hole emitted nothing but air. Shambling toward the woods but hardly getting any closer, Erin glanced over at Amber for a second with an unreadable expression on her face. There was sadness in it – maybe even downright anger at the situation – but there was also something else in her. Erin locked her in the eyes and seemed to study her, almost analyzing her through and through like a complicated equation. She bit her lip and gazed over at Adrienne jogging toward them, mentally measuring the short distance left between them. Then she glanced down at her empty pistol. _She can't be thinking that. There's no way. She wouldn-_

And almost to intensify her point, another bullet suddenly shot toward them, this time nearly clipping Erin in the side of the knee. Yelping and doing a kind of macabre hop into the air, she jumped like some kind of barnyard animal. She was still dragging Amber along, but now, they were going much slower. There seemed to be something else working its gears behind Erin's eyes now. _She knows we're not going out. It's obvious. She's dragging someone who can't walk away from a gun. But she would never do it. We're friends. Even if it means she's going to die, she-_

But there was no denying it. Erin Thompson was suddenly realizing what she had to do if she wanted to live. Her lip quivering and her defenseless pistol hanging at her side, she sniffled for a second before gazing longingly at Amber. The expression said something – and for the rest of her life – Amber would never know exactly what she was trying to tell her. She'd ponder it, but all in all, it just seemed to come to the same truth every time. _This is what it really means to be friends. This is what Shyla was trying to tell you._ From an outside standpoint it was a little heartless, almost border-lining as playing the game in all simplicity, but it was the only choice that she had left. _But still…_

"I'm sorry, Amber", Erin muttered, confirming her worst fears. There were tears in her eyes. "I'm really sorry…"

Then she let go of her hand and Amber fell against the sand, feeling like a thin line - her only real connection left with any semblance of normality in the world – had just been cut like an invisible thread. Her leg aching and her face ragged with wet grime, Amber Prescott fell over and buried her face into the beach, vaguely aware of the sound of her only friend left in the world making a frantic dash into the forest. Then Amber never saw her again.

* * *

Erin Thompson (Girl #19) was running for her life. The trees weaved around and she ran around them like a funhouse maze, cursing her idea to make a half-hearted assassination attempt. It had been on the spur of the moment, like most things in her life, and unfortunately, this was one that had fallen back on her badly. She wasn't just a sell-out now – she was now a runaway drifter who had abandoned her friend in the heat of the moment just to save her own life.

"_You had no other choice",_ Erin thought. _"You were dragging her like a rag doll. If there was any other way….any other goddamn way…"_

But there hadn't been. None at all.

Erin closed her eyes and ran with her heart pounding in her chest. If there was any God in the world – any true indication that life and love were still around – then He would allow Amber Prescott to depart from the living world without pain.

* * *

Amber lay in the sand and screamed bloody murder at the world, feeling at the verge of vomiting. A few seconds later, she did. White paste dribbled out through her lips and spit up into the sand, seeping in with the thick sanguine fluid dripping down from her gashed mouth. They were all gone. Shyla. Erin. Tori. They'd all been picked off like flies – or a, "chess board", as Shyla would put it – and they'd left her as the sole survivor. That didn't matter though. They were dead. Even after all of that pep-talk and stubbornly dying the reality of it, they'd really all died. _It doesn't matter if you're alone. Not in a million years. We were all alone together and we did great, Shy. Real trooper, weren't ya? How're you treading water now, huh? How do you feel now that you've proved your fucking point? Are you satisfied, huh? Are you satisfied with spitting in her face? Why can't you have just gone with the flow. You'd still be alive then. Just stand on the side in this kind of stuff. No reason to get involved...._

"SHY!" Amber screamed into the sky. _"SHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!"_

Then she collapsed and let the warm sand burn her face. She heard the footsteps coming up from behind her and the metallic jingle of the gun swishing against her hip, but for all that mattered in the world now, she didn't care. Adrienne Spring existed just as much as ghouls and fairy tales, and if she needed to blow her brains out to prove a point – similar to the late Shyla Ryals – so be it. She closed her eyes and waited patiently, picturing the brains of the homecoming queen splattering all over the white sand. _That would be the day…_

"So", Adrienne's simple voice said from behind her. There was no gunshot at all. "It looks like the tramp didn't want to stick around, huh? Too bad. We have a regular tea party going on here, don't we?"

"Do it", Amber spat, not even looking up. "Go ahead and do it".

"Do you really think I'd kill you, Amber? I mean, I've been offended in the last few days and pretty shocked how such a pristine, proper girl could stoop this low, but I didn't prepare for this. Killing you is the last thing on my mind. You're part of the bigger picture and you're sticking around to watch the fireworks – or at least until the plan comes together. I'd say around the third day would be a good estimate. Of course, estimates aren't logical at all, as your friend Shyla would tell you if she wasn't buzzard food".

"YOU KILLED HER!" Amber screamed. "YOU KILLED MY BEST FRIEND!"

"No", Adrienne said simply. "You killed her by letting her do something this stupid. Looks like the Queen Bee has some blood on her hands after all. That is, if you want to discount the Victoria incident we had earlier. I know I've said it before, but I'll say it again. That brick didn't throw itself, Amber".

"Shut up…."

"Or what, Amber? What are you going to do? Hide behind your friends and wait for them to solve your problems? Wait on the sidelines and try to ignore the fact that there's an apocalypse going on around you? This is real life, sweetie. Your friends are either dead or they bailed out on you. It's just you me and the sea, baby".

"I'm going to kill you", Amber said suddenly, the tone of her voice slipping down into sobbed sniffles. Her whole body was shaking now and she felt like her words were a pre-school statement – a simple affirmation of what had just happened - but it didn't stop her from repeating them again. "I'm going to kill you, you stupid cunt".

"Well, go right ahead then", Adrienne said calmly. "And start thinking. I'd love to see what kind of shitbrained idea you'll come up with. In the meantime, I'm going to relax on my side of the beach. It's a shame your friend Erin didn't have the brains to bring back any bullets from wherever she got that gun from. Tori came loaded. I'll only need one more bullet anyway if you misbehave".

A silence followed and Amber said nothing. She just lay there with her head buried in the sand. Adrienne stared at her for a second – then she continued:

"Don't try to run, Amber. I'm not killing you just yet, but there's nobody saying that I don't have to. Get your head in the game…"

"Get your head out of the clouds, Adrienne. You're fucking crazy and you're going to get what you have coming".

"Said the girl with the infected leg", Adrienne chimed in. "I'd like to see you try to kill me when you can't even stand up. It's all part of the bigger picture, Amber. The other girls? They weren't even worth it – you can try to make them fit into the equation, but when they don't fit, you can just toss them away. I would've thrown Erin away, but it looked like she slipped between my fingers. Ah well, can't win em all, can ya?" She paused thoughtfully. "And I think things are going to get very interesting around here. You'll love what I have planned".

And then, with a sly wink and a smile like a fox, she turned and started to walk back to her side of the beach. She hummed under her breathe and the pistol swung almost jovially at her side. Amber watched her as she walked, making footprints in the boiling sand with her sandals and utterly unaffected by everything that had happened. _It's all the bigger picture_, she'd said. _And pretty soon you'll be part of the bigger picture too…_

Amber's thoughts ping-ponged back and forth. She thought about the bigger picture; about her swollen leg; about footsteps in the sand; about abandonment; about killing Adrienne; then she started to think about Shyla and got a morbid dose of nostalgia like a wisp of air. Her voice was already vanishing in her mind and she pictured her name going into a record book as a statistic. Nobody would ever listen to anything she said. No ears would be leant to listen to the observations that had kept them alive for a day and a half. Nobody was going to learn from Shyla Ryals – at least, not anymore.

"Oh Shy", Amber muttered. She didn't have any tears left to cry.

Rolling her sand-stained face up from the ground, she winced as she got a healthy dose of the tropical sun. It was almost noon, and with her leg feeling the way it was, she had the feeling she'd be lying where she was for a very long time. Amber Prescott should have been thinking about things like that – instead, what ended up inscribed in her mind like a tombstone was that song_. The song we sang when we tried to escape. The song we sung when we almost made it. That damn song…_

"_Cause tramps like us",_ Amber whispered. _"Baby, we were born to run…"_

She sat there for a little bit, considering the words to the song with her lips quivering. Then she lay back in the sand and stared up at the sky with her arms sprawled out on the beach.

* * *

Adrienne Spring (Girl #17) listened to the girl crying and didn't get much emotion of it. It was like the background noise of a household air conditioner or a dog barking in the suburbs – it simply blended into the environment more or less. She stood there in the afternoon sun humming; her legs cool as she trutted through the sand; her arms swinging idly at her side. The dead body was drifting a few feet away from her in the water, and at just the look of it, she tried to force herself back into denial that what it had said was true. Shyla Ryals had had no idea, really. Everything she'd spit out of her piggy little mouth was a lie. Distancing herself? Alienating her emotions? Killing people because she was scared of getting close to them? _What bullshit was that?_

"_Because it's true, Adrienne",_ she thought. _"She said it because it's true…"_

She shuddered and shook the thought away. Things were falling into place, and when the ship passed again, she'd just have to scream louder. It was like a big jigsaw puzzle, and if some pieces didn't fit in, she would just discard them. Shyla hadn't fit into the equation, and she'd been dispatched with ease. And then there was the fact that the Thompson cunt had run out on her not once but twice now. But still, that was all expendable though – just a bunch of water under the bridge when you really looked at it. Things were all falling into place and even with only one person left alive on the beach now; she had no idea what she was planning.

Absolutely no idea at all.

* * *

**Eliminated**

**(Girl #16) Ryals, Shyla**

* * *

**21 Students Remaining**

* * *

**A/N: Well, this was certainly a long chapter. Looks like we're at the halfway point! With exactly half the game over and exactly half the students dead, things are really going to get interesting soon as the numbers narrow down. The pace of deaths might slow down a little, but trust me when I say that a lot of shit is still going to be going down soon. I already have what's possibly going to be the most exciting chapter of the story half-written (Hour 48) so I hope that will give you something to look forward to.**


	38. Day 2: Hour 36: 21 Students Remaining

Zane Barrens (Boy #1) was feeling thoughtful. As the thirty-fifth hour of the Battle Royale drew to a close, he was standing out on the back porch of the manor with his hands shoved into the pocket of his jeans, staring out at the spectacle in the backyard but not really seeing it.

The second day's sun was turning out to be a scorcher. Rays beat down hard on his neck, trickling out droplets of sweat and giving him the odd impression that the world itself was on the verge of melting. The tennis court's surface looked like hot clay. The pool, inviting if it weren't for the circumstances, shimmered and twinkled out white glares. All around, the backyard's artificial pasture stood up like a field of wheat grass; the wind swaying and ruffling it about; the green blades twiddling under the sky like transient creatures examined under a microscope. He watched it all carefully but dully, sadly but surely, almost trying to discern some kind of feeling out of it with hollow, tired eyes; as it was turning out, he wasn't getting much.

"_You say you've got a real solution", _Zane's mind sang._ "We'd all love to see a plan"._

To say that the arrival of the scavengers back to the manor had been bad was an understatement. When only five of them had walked into the manor's foyer, they'd all seen Peter immediately standing on the staircase and hurrying down. His mind had probably been so hopeful then, and looking back, Zane wondered if he had thought they would've brought back a dozen other people from their escapade across the island. Then his smile had quickly faded when he did a quick head count. _There'd only been five of them…_

What had transpired over the next few minutes could be described in hazy snapshots. Tristan had reluctantly told the story of the mineshaft to a silent audience. To the amount of reaction he got, he might as well have been speaking to a screen of white static. There'd been no epiphany between the six of them in the foyer; no second where they all began to cry at once; no cataclysmic moment to mark the death of Roxanne Patterson.

There had just been that awful moment where Peter had said in a broken voice, _"I…I have to go call Logan."_

And then he'd taken off up the stairs and retreated off to an unknown corner of the house. The moment after, when they'd all been alone and standing in the sunlit foyer, had probably been one of the most uncomfortable moments of Zane's life. For a few minutes they'd simply sat there in dejection, mulling around the marble floor in silence, before retreating off to different rooms of the house. Everyone seemed to want to handle the issue in their own way.

And so now, wiping sweat from his brow, Zane Barrens gazed absent-mindedly out into the elaborate backyard of the Krakhoffe Manor as his left hand involuntarily etched the same phrase over and over into the porch's wooden railing. He'd found the carving knife in the manor's kitchen drawer, and although he'd stated to the others it was for protection, he'd found another use for it - in all simplicity really, a reason to get his thoughts down on paper. Zane had been carving the words for nearly half an hour now -- and in his mind at least -- he was determined that they'd be engraved deep there even if the world ended.

Carved into the porch's wooden railing were the words:

"_You say you want a revolution?"_

He looked at the words for a second; admired his handiwork; then he sighed and looked up at the burghal sky sullen with hints of gray under the sun. He remembered that it supposedly rained pretty hard in the tropics. They might have had the manor, but for everyone else in the jungle that wasn't hiding in a ramshackle hideaway, it was going to be rough going. In the back of his mind, Zane faintly remembered one of the few things he'd learned in biology class -- it was about hawks. They always knew when a storm was coming. They always cleared out of the sky because they got a ruffling in their feathers or something.

Zane Barrens wasn't a hawk by any means, but a storm – and one that mattered in every sense of the word – was nonetheless on the rise.

_"Maybe even a war", _Zane's mind gibbered as he carved. Then he reminded himself to shut up.

Busy with his handiwork, his thoughts wandered back and forth. He knew a lot about storms and even more about the wars that had went with them. Up until his father, every man in his family -- or at least those that were qualified as men -- had fought in just about every war that society had to offer. For his grandfather it had been Vietnam; World War II for his great-grandfather; he sometimes daydreamed that he had distant relatives in every part of the world who had somehow wormed their way into foreign armies. There were probably Barrens of every ethnicity known to God, all of them drafting themselves into the armed forces for no other reason than to come back as a dog tag.

Zane was the runt of the litter though – or at least he tried his best to be. If the week had gone atypical, a regular Saturday for him consisted of waking up around noon, riding his bike down to the abandoned boathouse near Jesse Morgan's house, and smoking and talking about shitbrained topics like superheroes and politics he didn't even understand. That was the way things should have been, or at least in his book. It wasn't a healthy lifestyle, but as long as you lived off the world, or were at least able to discern some kind of cause out of it, all was said and done. Life was built off causes.

More than anything, he hated being the cause of it. Zane had thought for awhile that living off hate had been a good idea. It gave you something to look forward to in the morning. The only problem was that as you got older, it only broke you apart in every sense of the word.

_"A day and a half",_ Zane thought solidly. _"We've been here a day and a half." _He wanted to feel proud of the fact but only started to feel sick.

Continuing to carve the words, Zane mused about the people that didn't live off hate: the people that, taking the other approach, got their kicks out of being herded like sheep and doing whatever they were told. His parents were a couple of them. Proud and conservative patriots, they would be among the first to step up and say America was the greatest country in the world.

_"Can't fall back on your folks though",_ Zane thought. _"They fell apart too."_

And so they had. His mother wasn't fit for very much anymore. A few years back, Nora Barrens had slipped on black ice in the elementary school parking lot and fractured her hip. A capable woman even with square spectacles that gave her an aristocratic demeanor, she'd taken it as the sign of the times that society could afford the dispense of one measly working class lady. Even when her hip had finally healed, she'd ended up spending most of her days sprawled out on lawn chairs in the glass atrium located at the town's local golfing rage, sunbathing and sipping cocktails with her phony friends spreading small town gossip beside her. Her friends were all overweight, loud, smelled nauseatingly like bad perfume, and shared packs of Newport cigarettes while boasting about their husbands. Zane hated them.

His father wasn't much better. Michael Barrens was a gruff man who suffered from high blood pressure, and if luck was on Zane's side, would likely drop dead by his son's high school graduation. Zane thought of walking up on stage to get his diploma and peering down in the audience to see the big guy sprawled out in a folding chair and trying to look clean-cut in a nice suit. When the whole thing was over, his father would probably beam and give him a good pat on the shoulder with a hand that was veined and knotted with arthritis. Then he'd go off and call him a, "real man."

Zane winced for a second. If there was any statement more stupid than being a real man, he didn't know what. If God were his witness, he would have gladly stood in front of the world and stayed fifteen for the rest of his life.

_But that one time…_

There was one time that seemed to stand out. The one time Zane had felt in his life that he was anything close to a real man. It hadn't been all that long ago, but considering the sense of hyper reality the game had moved with, it now seemed ages ago. He could close his eyes and think about it, and thinking back even harder, he would even be able to hear that voice. _"We're screwed. We're done! We're-_

* * *

_"Fucked!" J.C Brooke finished. "Honest to god, we're all fucked!"_

_It was the epitome of chaos. The time was a little past midnight, and in a place where the streets were deserted, it seemed like the riot that had erupted in the small square of the Congo Park could be likened to an apocalypse. The summer air was humid and smelled acridly of gunpowder and pond scum. The later came from the polluted pond at the center of the square that now filled with the shadows of scurrying figures struggling to make it to the other side. There was a gunshot, and somewhere in the enormous crowd, someone screamed._

"_It's the like the world's ending", Skylar Tierren said in awe and nobody contradicted him._

_The three of them stood in the parking lot and watched the riot – the same riot that had begun as a peaceful protest – slowly erupt into something worthy of a page in the town's history book. Police cars seemed to be parked everywhere in a mismatch pattern, their sirens flashing red and blue light into the darkness. Teenagers and college students were dashing off in every direction, some of them huddled in groups but the majority simply dashing off into the sweltering night._

"_Somebody ratted on us!' Skylar said. "Somebody must have ratted on us! No way the fuzz would have just shown up like this!'_

"_What do you mean?" J.C howled. 'They're cops! It's in their nature!"_

_Zane Barrens, even standing between the two of them, could barely hear them. His jaw was open in horror and he could only gaze awestruck at the mess that he'd created. He could now smell the vile scent of tear gas as well as the distilled odor of fresh blood on the park's newly mowed grass. He should have felt collected, he should have felt a semblance of maturity for the whole thing, but he could only look at the riot like a reluctantly guilty child. It was his handiwork, and now, he watched as both classmates and nameless faces he knew around town dashed off in every direction. He recognized Erin Thompson near them – proudly clad in a multicolored shirt proclaiming, "My Government Killed My Family Today And All I Got Was A Lousy T-Shirt – screaming out senselessly into the night. A little further away was Mitch Kelley with his face painted in swift stripes of red, white, and blue, glancing back in fear as he ran for his life toward the woods. Feeling like he was trapped in a spinning funhouse, Zane felt his stomach churning as he picked out more faces. Risa Ridgeway. Melody Perkins. Patrick Quincannon. Adam Spencers…_

"_Where's Jesse?" Skylar screamed. "Where the hell is Jesse? Did either of you guys see her?'_

"_She was standing by the pond" J.C stammered. "We…we got lost in the crowd when we were running". She paused. "What…what do we do now, Zane?"_

_And at that horrified moment, he realized that both of them were staring at him. Their eyes were wild like animals, alert and expectant, and he felt nauseous with the idea of having to give them an answer. He thought of all the fliers they'd posted around town advertising the stupid thing, and he thought of how it would all end up pointing back to the two of them. Then there were the horror stories he'd heard about the rehibilitation centers they sent juvenile criminals to: the kind where they changed you in a way that was the equivalent to a quick and efficient lobotomy._

_He looked at the two of them again. Then, out of nowhere, he felt Skylar angrily grab him by the collar of his shirt and hold him tight._

"_Zane, listen to me", Skylar said angrily. "Do you have an idea how to solve this fucking mess, or do you-_

* * *

"Want some ice tea?"

He nearly jumped when he heard the voice. Deprived from a combination of a lack of sleep and paranoia, he naturally raised a fist and stepped forward toward the newcomer on the deck. When his eyes adjusted under the sunlight, he couldn't help but feel pleasantly surprised. Standing in front of him, and a ghost of the person she used to be, was Mare Ewing (Girl #3). Her face looked hollow and resigned to what was happening, but even under that, the island hadn't managed to change her much. In her hands, she offered a tray with two glasses of ice teas sitting side-by-side.

At that moment, she nearly stumbled backward and dropped both of the glasses. Wincing from the sunlight, Zane couldn't help but blush as he brought down his fist to his side.

"Jesus", Mare breathed. "Calm down dude. I was just trying to give you a drink."

"Oh", Zane muttered. He paused. "Well, um, sorry if I scared y-

"No", Mare said dryly. "I just wish we lived in a world where we could offer a nice, cold ice tea to our friends without getting out necks snapped."

"Welcome to the twenty-first century", Zane said smirking. "Viva la vida."

"Hey, I'll drink to that", Mare said with a laugh.

He accepted the ice tea and the two of them sipped calmly, standing there casually as a nipping gust of wind blew across the deck. He watched as she leant back against the railing; a stark portrait of a young girl with a face buttered in sweat and skin tanned by the Oklahoma sun back home. He pictured her back home now, sitting in class perpetually bored or laughing heartily at her lunch table with a sad, cynical smirk. That smirk was all that seemed persistant about her. Now she was bloodied and scorched by sunlight and dirt, her eyes glazed but still making her appear durable. Even the simple idea of sipping an ice tea with Mare Ewing had never seemed more surreal.

"So", Mare said after a minute. "Come here often?"

Zane laughed. "All the time. You could call Cuna Cielo my summer home."

"Most people wouldn't laugh at that, you know", Mare said sternly. "Or even let me make a joke out of it. They'd either be confused or tell me to shut up. I get that a lot – I guess a sense of humor like mine doesn't mix well with the masses. You're not one of them though, Zane. You can laugh with me. That makes you different."

"Is that a bad thing?"

"No", Mare said. "For starters, it makes me warm up to you a little more. How's your tea?'

"Good", Zane said. "Kind of warm."

"I made it myself", Mare explained. "I don't think anyone's lived up here for years. They probably just stop by every now and then to stock the place up for tourists. Most of the sugar was too hardened and I couldn't get the water cold enough". She paused. "If there were people in this house before the game started, what do you think happened to them?'

"They sent them a form letter telling them to get out", Zane explained. "And if they didn't, they came in about a week later and blew them all to hell. That's how we get our way in this country."

"It's just weird being in this house", Mare sighed. "Taking all of their food and staying here, I mean. I feel like I'm dancing on some asshole's grave."

"A new announcement's coming soon", Zane said after he sipped his drink. "They'll be more graves to dance on if you're the vigorous type."

"Trust me, man", Mare sighed. "I've seen my fair share." There was an awkward silence that fell between them for a moment. Then she spoke up in a quiet voice. "Roxy is dead."

"Yeah", Zane said. "I….I didn't really see much. It all happened so fast."

"We sat together on the bus coming here, y'know. She was a good girl – a good one, but a silly one. She never really managed to get her head in the right place. It was always some fabulous bigger picture about going off to some big-name acting school or signing up for these different programs for college. People took advantage of her a lot. They knew her head was in the clouds, and when someone's up there, you can get them to do whatever you want." She paused. "Most of the time I just let it happen because I wanted her to learn for herself."

"There's nothing wrong with that", Zane said. "You don't have to go and beat yourself up over it."

"I won't", Mare said. "It's just…so many good people are dying. Not just good, but innocent. People who aren't like you and me – the ones that never really got the bigger picture and lived in their happy, little world. Their deaths are the worst because they never see it coming. People like Risa, or Demi, or even some of Amber's friends. They don't deserve to be out here. They deserve to go back home and grow up. This game is what turns the tables on them."

"You sound like you want to do something about it", Zane said quietly.

"I'm going to do what I can to get out of here", Mare said. "And if it's my time to die, so be it. There's no such thing as dignity, but I'm not leaving here without a fight. If it's the last thing I do, I'm going to figure out what everyone died for. There's got to be a reason for all of this."

"Can I ask you a question, Mare?"

"Sure", she said. "Shoot. I was kind of tipping the boat anyway."

"If the escape didn't work", Zane began. "And the clock was counting down, what would you-

"I know what you're going to say", Mare said quickly. "You want to know what would happen if you and me were the only ones left. There should be an easy answer for that, but instead, I think I'll reverse it. What would _you_ do, Zane?"

The question was like a knife that cut off their conversation. He felt like drowning out an answer in his drink, but quickly realized that there was no ice tea left. The deck suddenly seemed much smaller, and out across the horizon line, he could see the tropical sun blaring down across the waters that stretched out somewhere to the mighty Atlantic Ocean. He thought of two people in a Mexican standoff, pistols pointed to heads, and mused over the question. What would you do if we were the only ones left?

"I don't know", Zane decided finally. "But as far as I'm concerned, we're getting out of here."

"That's the right idea", Mare said with a grin. "I just wish I could think like that. I guess I just have to find something to live for."

Zane stared. "What do you mean?"

"Well, everyone has something to live for", Mare said. "You need something or somebody to love, or maybe even hate. If we didn't have that, we wouldn't even have a reason to get up in the morning. Hell, if you didn't, you wouldn't have gotten this far in the game. There's something behind each of our shoulders that keeps us going. So what's keeping you alive, Zane? What's that nice thing back home that's let you get this far?'

"No", Mare said. She paused. "Do you have something to live for, Zane?

It was something he hadn't realized until now. There hadn't been anything stopping him from becoming slumped beside the bodies of Skylar Tierren and Jesse Morgan, lost in a catatonic state to be picked off by an opportunistic vulture. There hadn't been anything stopping it from being him rather than Rory to get the rifle blast to the face. If he was the variable, then his constant was a mystery. _What's keeping you going? What's the reason you're still out here if you haven't changed at all since you've got here?_

And then he remembered. The last time he'd seen her had been early yesterday morning. She was a pretty girl with red, curly hair that fell about her shoulders. He thought of all the times back home that she'd nuzzled into his shoulder whenever they were walking, smiling in the dry, honest way that showed all of her teeth. He thought of smoking marijuana in the boathouse by Jesse's house afterschool with her; then riding off to concerts roughly two miles away on their bike for weekend-long tours; then, finally, he thought of the last time he'd seen her. _She's crying. She thinks you killed them…._

"It's not something back home", Zane said instantly. "By the time this is over, I'm going to find J.C Brooke."

"Go for it then", Mare said. "Give it your all."

"What are you living for?"

"Not much", Mare said simply. "I lost mine awhile ago. Maybe the reason I'm still alive is because I'm supposed to find it. And with that in mind, I think I'm going back inside. Once Moses comes out of hiding, he'll probably decide to lead us all off somewhere."

He watched as she started to walk back with the empty glass in one hand and the tray in another. Halfway there he felt like he should have said something, and when she finally reached the sliding glass doors, he was certain:

"Hey Mare", Zane called.

She turned back. "Yeah?"

"Thanks for the drink."

Mare smiled. "Sure, no problem."

* * *

Mitch Kelley (Boy #10) wasn't outside. He sat in the kitchen in a chair leaning back against the counter. While the interior may have been pleasant at the time the Krakhoffe Manor was first built, it was now unfurnished and date like a picturesque catalogue in the early fifties. The floors were grimy linoleum, the yellow wallpaper was peeled and folding like the groves of old tree bark, and the fluorescent lighting seemed to flicker over the round table beside the refrigerator. The fridge itself was a haphazard kind of thing, held together with rusted pipes and littered with tacky magnets and worn-out leaflets that had neatly been tucked under them. It might have felt ideal to someone from long ago – especially whoever had once owned the god-forsaken house -- but now, it only made the mansion seem large and lonely.

Staring out across the table, Mitch looked over bemusedly at Tristan Igolovosky (Boy #8). Slumped over on the table with his head resting in his arms, he'd seemed to have fallen asleep a few minutes ago. It had seemed like the right idea at the time, especially with everything that had happened, and at first Mitch had tried it. He'd tossed and turned for awhile, and then, coupled with an impending headache, he decided staying up was the best choice. _You can't have any good dreams here anyway…_

Mitch winced. He wanted to think back to a place where you could still have good dreams; he decided to think of something nice back home.

Back in Spanish Rivers, the Kelleys owned a family haircutters – Irv's Salon -- down on Androscoggin Street. The name supposedly came from Mitch's dead great-grandfather who had come over from Ireland. With the fact that they offered cheap prices coupled with the truth that they were the only barbershop in town, they managed to profit even in a plummeting economy. After school, Mitch would typically ride his bike down the town's back roads and end up at the shop in about half an hour.

Two members of the Kelley family worked at the salon. His older sister Beth was a slender girl with a long neck, boasting herself as a proud vegan fond of using organic products. Rose Kelley, his mother, was a mildly overweight woman with dimples who laughed loudly and gossiped with her customers about small town life as she clipped their hair.

At around three-thirty, Mitch would walk in and give a half-hearted wave to both of them. Then he'd wander into the back corner of the shop and spend the afternoon doing his homework, occasionally gazing up and listening to the conversations his mother had with their customers. He got to know all of them in time. Noreen Spruce was a petite woman with glasses and a monotone voice, usually complaining about some kind of problem with her daughter. was a tall, sunburned man with a moustache who always asked for the same trim week after week.

Mitch would look at all of them, noticing their mannerisms as he sat far away in the corner. He never once considered actually walking up to chat with his sister or speak to his mother's customers. He never even thought of learning how to cut hair. All Mitch had ever known was being a proud outsider, noticing people and making mental notes on them. Life was better on the outside than the inside.

And so that was his outlook on life. If you didn't join in, you couldn't get hurt. Life was manageable if you walked on the wayside and lived as a passing observer, looking wistfully at the action but never really getting into it. It kept you safe, and more than anything else, it dillusioned you of a sense of purpose. It gave you an outlook that was jaded, never joining in to form much of an opinion on anything. In Mitch's head, things were either bad or good – black and white. He looked at their current situation in two sides. _One's bad, one's good. Adam went to the bad, you went to the good. Or even the other way around. Who knows anymore?_

You could keep a clean slate as a passing observer, and if you played your cards right, you could keep your nose out of trouble. Mitch had been planning on using that strategy in college too. Conditions in the country were bad, but with mediocre grades, decent exam scores, and a few years at community college, he'd be able to worm his way into medical school. If you walked like you were nobody, people would treat you like nobody. Then you'll spend your life fixing other people's problems, never having to stare in a mirror and see his own reflection. _Great idea – what are you giving back to yourself. A one way ticket to Cuna Cielo…_

"Hey."

Mitch was shaken out of his thoughts at the sound of the voice. He looked up and watched as Terry Klingerman (Girl #6) emerged from the hallway and entered the kitchen. A blue bath towel hung loosely over her shoulder and her oily face was speckled with droplets of water. She walked toward him and greeted him with a small smile.

"I'm back", Terry said. "Where's everyone else?"

"Mare and Zane are out on the deck", Mitch said. "Tristan's out cold and Peter barricaded himself somewhere". He paused and looked her up and down. "Your hair's wet."

"I just took a shower", Terry said quietly. "I always think a lot better when I'm in the shower and I wanted to wash all the dust off. I get really bad allergies."

"Y'know, you look a lot better when you straighten out your hair", Mitch said thoughtfully. "And you feel a lot better about yourself when you shower everyday. People would probably stop saying things about you too."

"Sure", Terry said with a smirk. "I'll get right on that when we go back to school on Monday."

It was probably one of the strangest things he'd ever heard. He watched as she took a seat across from him with her towel swung over her shoulder. She smiled at him, and if there was anything he'd never noticed about her until now, it had to be her smile. The smirk Terry gave him had a dry, weary-of-world kind of feel to it that seemed to embody all the bitterness in the world. He looked her up and down like an interrogation across the table. He saw a pimply girl with a mop of greasy, blonde hair and sharp, blue eyes that seemed to glare out at him. Her eyes were hollow, and in the back of his mind, Mitch was reminded of something his mother had told him. As woman got older, most of them tended to settle down and get a weathered look to them that came with wrinkles and roughness. That was called a, "settled woman."

Looking over at Terry Klingerman, he couldn't help but feel like she'd been a victim of premature aging – she'd probably started settling in when she was twelve. Her face was weathered and tired-looking almost like somebody who'd seen a lot and was hardly surprised to find anything new. The smile that she somehow kept on her only made it even more unnerving.

She didn't mix well in school either. Terry Klingerman was notorious in Spanish Rivers for her strange nature and quirky -- almost neurotic -- behavior. There were days where she was overly talkative, almost to the point of being hyperactive, and days where she just seemed to sit in her desk and finish the work that was assigned. Nobody could forget the day in seventh grade that she'd come into school with both of her hands painted fluorescent blue. When her classmates had asked her, she'd simply stated that, "blue was her favorite color." The fact of her awkward appearance – her hair knotted and unbrushed like a poodle -- did little to help. Looking back now, Mitch couldn't help but realize that she'd been the butt of everyone's jokes since elementary school. _And now you're sitting across from her hundreds of miles for home. How does that work out?_

"How long has Tristan been asleep?" Terry asked.

"About half an hour", Mitch said calmly. "I didn't want to wake him up."

"Lucky guy", Terry said wistfully. She paused. "I didn't see it happen, Mitch. I was already running out and I just remember her lying there. It was awful. I kept thinking Roxy looked like a sheep or something – a sheep on a farm that got caught in a fence. It was so dark down there and there was so much blood."

"I saw the whole thing", Mitch said quietly. He paused for a moment, trying not to recollect on the event. "I was one of the last ones out."

"That makes nine of us then", Terry said thoughtfully. "Nine's a lucky number."

"Good", Mitch said softly. "Ten's even luckier in my book – and it's a shame we couldn't keep that number up." He considered it all for a moment and seemed to remember something. Then, just on the spur of the moment, he said: "Ten little Indian boys went out to dine. On-

"One went and choked himself", Terry finished. "And then there were nine."

Mitch looked surprised. "You read Agatha Christie?"

"I try to get through a book a month", Terry said. "I read a lot of Christie when I was home sick in third grade. I had the flu and we had all of her books in our living room". She paused. "I can just picture her now behind her typewriter prattling on about murder. She really thought she knew all about it. She might as well have been the queen of murder mysteries, but between you and me, she still didn't know murder. I didn't either, but then I came here. Real murder's different – you can't get it down on paper."

"Yeah", Mitch said. "You're…you're lucky you didn't have to through it."

"I don't plan on it either", Terry said. "At least not right now. I don't really want to get caught up in this mess, but if I have to, well, I guess that's fine in my book. It's not like I've solved anything yet."

Mitch stared. "Solved anything?"

"Yeah", Terry said. "I thought about it in the shower and I think we're here to learn something."

"Like what?' Mitch said with a smirk. "That there's no hope for humanity whatsoever?"

"There's hope", Terry said coolly. "There's always hope. You just have to have faith and wait for it to come. My brothers and me used to pal around with my uncle a lot before my dad took us back in. The first thing he did when we got there was throw our television into the garbage – he said that if he was going to raise kids, he'd start them on a clean slate. He used to spend his time telling me these stories. They were all about talking animals – y'know, mostly tall tales with morals at the end and stuff. They were always about the same thing, but as I got older, I started to think more about what they meant. We're all born for a reason and once we solve our puzzle, then our time is up."

"So that's what you think this is?" Mitch asked. "Judgement?"

"Not judgement", Terry said with a smirk. " I mean, that's kind of silly. I don't see anyone here going to Hell, or at least not in my book. People are good by nature, Mitch – you might not believe it, but there's actually some really good people out there. We're all born with a purpose. If we're all meant to die tomorrow night, then I'm pretty assured that ours will be coming along soon. I'm pretty sure yours will."

"Try telling that to Roxy", Mitch said. "I'm sure she'd love to hear about her purpose."

"Are you Roxy?" Terry asked. "No, you're not. We can't say if she learned something or not before she died. The point is that these are really the times when you realize who you are as a person. We're the ones that decide who we are, Mitch. Right down until our lives are counting down, we're the ones that make the call in the end to decide where we go. It's all about karma."

'Yeah, but-

And then an abrupt voice cut into their conversation:

"Hey, hey, hey!"

* * *

The voice was high, and clear and boomed through the Krakhoffe Manor with thundering intensity. It was a voice that had come out of an intercom system wired throughout the manor, and with six hours having passed since the last, nearly every heart on the island skipped a beat. The voice was a low grumble, the voice likened to that of a large man with a considerable beer belly – a man who was a regular at the nearest place in his town to buy liquor; a man who sat there on his stool and cracked vulgar jokes with his friends.

"Coming live to you from the school, this is Reynold Burke with the noon report! I'll tell you, I thought you kids were going soft on us for a bit. I'd like to congratulate you for evening out the odds in the last few hours by racking up three bodies."

He seemed to give him a ragged cough that made it clear he was smoking. He grumbled for a moment, clearing his throat afterward, before continuing:

"First to go was David Rodriguez, Boy #14. We're not quite sure what precisely killed this kid, seeing how most of the cameras anywhere near him were incinerated, but if anyone's been wondering what that giant cloud of smoke rising out of the forest is, I think we'll let be an example. Long story short, he got dragged along for a ride he couldn't handle, tried to escape, and it blew up in his face. You guys aren't getting out of here – don't waste your time trying. Our second death was Roxy Patterson, Girl #12, who got her just desserts after a little escapade down in the mineshaft. Finally, our last death this morning was none other than Shyla Ryals, Girl #16, who sunk under pressure and took a bullet to the head for it. Not too easy surviving now when you don't have friends to fall back on, huh Amber?"

"We have no new Danger Zones to offer. We are under the impression, however, that a rebellion of sorts is underway. Rather than crush it and end it early, we figured that we'd let you kids learn for yourselves. I said it before and I'll say it again, but things like this never end well."

There was another audible grumble from the man that came in crackly through the intercom wired around the island -- and when that was done with:

"Burke out."

* * *

"That makes twenty-one", Terry concluded. "More than half of us are dead."

"Shyla's gone", Mitch noted. "David too. Who's left now?"

"Amber was in the classroom", Terry said. "So were some of her other friends. J.C's still out there somewhere. That leaves a few others like the Mercedes triplets, that Nathan kid, and a handful of other people." She paused. "And well, then there's Lea."

"Yeah", Mitch said solemnly. "And her."

"And if all goes well tonight", Terry said. "Then we'll all be able to go home."

"Well, that depends what you can call home now", Mitch said. "Peter will come out soon and tell us what to do. He just needs time to think. Then we'll have a rendezvous and all come together. We'll probably have some kind of memorial for Roxy, and then we'll all get out of here by tonight."

"And you really believe in this?" Terry asked.

"Yeah", Mitch said. "Why shouldn't I?'

"I think it's like feathers blowing in the wind", Terry said thoughtfully. "And no matter where the feather goes, sooner or later, it's going to hit the ground. It's what we were brought here to do. Everyone has a time where they really learn who they are. Maybe this is supposed to be our time."

"You don't have to think like that", Mitch urged. "We got this far and come hell or high water, we're going to get out of here together."

"I won't make a promise on that", Terry said with a smirk. "But thanks for helping me get this far. Thanks for coming with me. It means a lot."

"No problem…."

He watched as she brought the towel down to the table and spread it out, bringing it up to wipe her face. He thought of Terry Klingerman standing in the hallway with her books up to her nose; he thought of her grinning ear-to-ear as she walked into school in seventh grade with her hands held high in the air, both of them spray painted fluorescent blue; last but not least, he thought of the image only a day ago of her stumbling out on a deserted street as the sun rose and lit up the sky like the hot grizzle of an egg in a pan. Then he looked down now, and very thoughtfully, noticed the stitches that he'd made across her wrist. He suddenly felt more unsure of himself than he ever had in his life.

"Terry", Mitch said quietly.

Terry stared forward as she brought the towel down. "Yeah?"

And then he kissed right there in the kitchen. Mitch felt a twinge that was both awkward and new as he leant across the table, locking lips with the school outcast who had painted both her hands blue. For a moment he felt the urge to back away, but then she gripped his shoulder and they stood up together, backing up against the kitchen counter with their lips locked and arms enveloped.

It only lasted for about five seconds in total and it was only the rush of newfound fear from what had happened that drove them away. Terry was the one who pushed herself away, backing against the counter and staring at Mitch with awe in her eyes. She backed up toward the chair and brought her fingertips to her lips, staring at the ground but clearly not really seeing it.

"Sorry", Mitch said quickly. "I-

"No", Terry said quickly. "No…that…. that felt good. I just…I've never really done that before. It sort of scared me."

"Same", Mitch said. "I hope it didn't come out wrong."

"Thank God he's asleep", Terry said as she eyed Tristan in the chair. "He never would have let us lived that down."

"Tell me about it", Mitch sighed. He paused before continuing: "Do you want to go and try to find Peter? He should be coming out soon."

"As much as I respect that guy", Terry said with a soft smile. "He has his heart in the right place but not his head."

"Relax", Mitch said and even managed a grin of his own. "Pete knows what he's doing."

And with that said, it wasn't until later that he'd realize how incredibly wrong he was about this.

* * *

By the time the crackling sound of static started again, his mind was adrift like a feather floating in a field of hot air. He sat sprawled beside the mansion's staircase in a kind of broken stupor, leaning raggedly against the banister as he smoked the lone cigarette that they had left on the island. It was wet and tasted like burned grass, but in the broad perspective of things, he really couldn't think enough to care anymore. His body was lathered in sweat as sunlight streamed into the mansion's foyer, and he eyed it all with conspicuous eyes as he let the smoke drift out between his lips. Everything around him was very quiet and very still. From the hallway around the bend of the staircase, he could hear the faint mutter of people talking. _Kitchen. People in the kitchen…_

And so Peter Juntz (Boy #9) thought, _"Good. Let them talk. Let them go on talking right until the world ends"._

Then he gazed over wearily at the yellow walkie-talkie sitting in his lap. Sounds that were both incoherent and crackly were buzzing out – a sign of reception nonetheless – but past that, there was no answer; no response; nobody at the digging site to get the word of what had happened and become an epitome for his worries. With the nature of how the whole escapade was going, there didn't seem to be a point in answers anymore. Everything went in one ear and out the other. Everything – and everybody alongside that - was distilling itself down to a plaintive vanilla feeling. _In one ear and out the other._

He remembered wildly, _"The whole secret of existence is to have no fear._ _Only man can solve his troubles"._

He considered those words for a second and looked at them like a vague textbook definition, trying to decipher sense out of them. In the end, he decided there wasn't much – in the end, all you had to do to sound philosophical was spit out a yarn about existence and spirituality. If you did that, people would think you were some kind of phony genius; people would think that you knew what you were doing.

He sighed and took another go with his foul-tasting cigarette. This intake wasn't a good one. He ended up getting burning tingles in the back of his throat like his lungs were flaming up, and with that, wretched and opened his mouth, Peter Juntz started to gag. Then he coughed. After that, he vomited on those steps and spit up white paste that stunk like rotten eggs. It started to dispense and dirty the steps in front of him, draining down like a makeshift gutter spilling out a thin line. Two day's worth of not showering had accumulated some of the worst body odor known to God, but even with that, his mind did little to care. _If only the others could see me like this…_

Peter grimaced and pictured one of the others stumbling into the foyer to see their leader – the guy that had brainstormed up a suicide pact to get them all saved – slumped over on a stairwell with a greasy cigarette in his hand and vomit all over his lap. Alongside that, he pictured a recurring image in his head – a massive graveyard with a sky as white as snow with tombstones lining up in clusters over the hill. He pictured one of them standing out there in bold contrast to the rest. Etched upon that grave was the name of Roxy Patterson. There was a short epigraph on the grave too: _Why did you kill me?_

"But I didn't kill you", Peter thought aloud. He looked around wildly for a second, somewhat conscious of the idea of Roxy's ghost listening, before he continued. "I mean…It….it was for the greater good. It was just an accident. You don't think things like this through. I mean, things like this aren't supposed to happen. They're the variables – you can break everything down into equations like that. You just have to solve them and get around them". He paused. "I….I didn't want anyone to die. I just wanted…I just wanted to give everyone hope."

He expected to hear a voice chastise him for everything he said, or at least answer him. He was too past being forgiven. The plan was plausible; the plan was good; there was no saying the plan wouldn't work. The plan, however, was still an afterthought. It was the result of a brainstorm and a desire to make a point. _Go out with a bang._ Peter pondered that concept for a moment and then decided that it had no meaning. In every sense of the word, he was falling apart. He'd put himself up on a pedestal and vowed to kill himself.

"_But you can't now",_ Peter thought. _"You got someone killed and….and….and you're scared."_

He grimaced and craned his neck around the bend of the staircase. He listened pleasantly to the voices of the others talking in the kitchen. He recognized them Mitch and Terry: two people that expected to see him lit up in only a few hours like a human fireworks show. He pictured his body standing atop the dirt mound and sizzling like a sausage, churning out white sparks as his flesh was churned into a paste on his bone. He cringed again, felt on the verge of coughing up his smoke again, but didn't.

"I wasn't sure it would work", Peter admitted aloud. He knew he was talking to himself but he no longer cared. "The escape. I mean, I'll admit it now. I wasn't completely sure it was work. I just…I just wanted to give everyone something to hope for. I just didn't want to see them turn us into animals…"

"_I thought if I killed myself it would make sense",_ Peter said softly. _"I thought it would get all of them out and I'd go down making a point. I'd make sense out of things. I wanted to be the one to get everyone the happily ever after. I was supposed to go out with a bang."_

But if there was anything that had changed his mind in the last several hours, it was the simple fact that things had begun to weigh in on him. He thought of how he'd assembled the masses together; then he thought of all of them lined up like lambs being lead to a slaughter; he thought about how their lives rested entirely in his hands. He was an overseer, manipulating and toying with them like pieces on a chess board. You're becoming exactly what you hate, Pete. _You did this to get back at the bigwigs behind this, and now you're becoming exactly what you hate…_

"_I wish I was insane",_ Peter thought drearily. _"I wish I didn't have to go through with this."_

But that was useless. The facts were as clear as crystal. The whole thing had been a suicide mission to begin with. There had been moments of clarity in the beginning, moments where going out with a bang seemed to have meaning, but in the last few hours, this had changed. Roxy was the first casualty, and with a leader like Peter Juntz, it was certain there would be more joining the fray in due time. It would be all your fault, too. Why'd you rope yourself into this? You're not a leader! You're too far in! You have to dig yourself out. You-

At that moment, Peter was met with a realization.

He looked at the front door that now looked more inviting than ever before. He thought of dashing out into the sunlight outside and running to the other side of the island, spending the rest of his time away from the people that he'd rallied. _And you'll apologize somehow. You'll put honor in somehow. Apologies make everything better. Leaders always have to apologize. Then everything's better…_

Peter's penultimate thought before the hour ended was that he'd gotten somebody killed, and his very last one – the one that followed almost immediately after – was that he was having very different thoughts now.

* * *

**No Students Eliminated**

* * *

**21 Students Remaining**

* * *

**A/N: Sorry about that indefinite hiatus there…. this chapter was a bit of a hassle to write seeing how not much happened. It was sort of more for character development than anything else. The good news though is that, with the students declining faster and faster, the chapters are going to get shorter. The pace is going to pick up with updates because of this, and with all of that combined, the story will probably be over by the middle of this summer since I'm back on schedule. I have the end written already (Hour 72), and although it's not really going to end on a happy note, I think it's going to be satisfying.**

**And if you're confused by the whole riot flashback, don't worry. They'll be others in a short time that will tie the whole story together. Just pay attention and it will all make sense at the end. I won't give it away, but there's much more of a reason to the class being chosen than you think.**


	39. Day 2: Hour 37: 21 Students Remaining

"_He had it coming…_

_He had it coming…_

_He only had himself to blame…"_

The jukebox's music only seemed like it was growing louder to the three girls in the diner. They could have decided to turn it off aptly enough, but on the other hand, the music seemed to carry a kind of cryptic resonance with it. The idea of everything being your last 'something' – whether your last meal, your last laugh, or even your last song – seemed to be one of the most substantive things they had left in their lives. You ended up cherishing everything. When the idea of death was in the picture, even the most trivial of things seemed to matter so much more.

"The merry murderesses of the Cook County jail", Sadie Mercedes (Girl #9) mused

Sitting beside her, J.C Brooke (Girl #1) glanced up in confusion. "What the hell are you talking about now?"

"The song on the jukebox", Sadie said quietly. "It's from the musical _Chicago_. We did the play back in the middle school. It's sung by a bunch of prisoners who murdered their husbands for cheating on them."

"Good", J.C said dryly. 'They probably deserved it."

The three of them were sitting together in one of the diner's small booths that lined across the room in two aisles. The table in front of them was sullen with playing cards that more or less had become a way of passing time. They sat now in a haphazard pile of black spades and red hearts, the result of all three of the girls realizing it wasn't helping in taking their mind off their worries. The sunlight streaming through the window glazed over the table and lit up the faces of the queens and kings on the cards, making them seem alert and militant.

Prudence Mercedes (Girl #9) was slumped in her seat in a state that seemed to border catatonia. Even with the daylight blaring through the glass windows and turning the diner into a sauna, it seemed like she was suffering from the early symptoms of sleep deprivation. Her eyes were reddened and tired and they kept snapping from side to side as she polished her shotgun. Every few seconds she would mutter something under her breathe before shaking her head and going on to polish even harder.

Sitting beside her, J.C watched her with a look that bordered between fear and awe. She'd cleared out the small quantity of medical supplies in the diner and her swollen arm was now slung in a makeshift cast the girls had made out of a blanket. Her forehead was wrapped in a thick bandage that partially hid the fact that a good portion of the hair she'd been so much effort into had been reduced to scourged patches on her head. With all of hat aside though, she looked frightened enough to make a dash out of the diner any second.

Sadie was the only one that looked somewhat conscious. Sitting in the booth and letting the sunlight warm her aching face, she shuffled a handful of cards in her hand and drummed her fingers against the surface of the table. She stared down at the numbers and decrepit inked pictures of kings, queens, and jacks all smiling their wicked smiles. There was a lone joker in the deck that lay off on the side forgotten. It may have been a sign of sleep deprivation, for some reason, the card frightened her. It gave her the idea that somebody was laughing at her.

"_But you can't have that",_ Sadie thought quickly. _'That's all done with."_

She paused for a moment and thought back to Spanish Rivers. She considered being slumped over a toilet in the girl's bathroom after school and doing her best to hold down her lunch like a dirty secret; she thought of going to football games in an offhand effort to mix with the crowd that she saw potential in; then she thought about a silly girl who hadn't had a sense of what the world was about until only two days ago. That girl – the same girl that had been particularly content with throwing up into a toilet bowl on a linoleum bathroom floor – was now feeling homesick. Things hadn't been good back then, but there was a sense of longing in them now. A feeling that you'd give anything to go back to the way things were. _Back when you didn't have death in the picture. Back when you didn't have to look inside yourself every second of every day. Back when you could actually be a teenag-_

And then practically reading her thoughts, the same girl that had just spoken opened her mouth again:

"I want to go home", J.C said suddenly. "I want to get off this island and never come back. And just for the record Sadie, I hate musicals. I want that jukebox turned off."

"We took a vote", Sadie said dully. "Winner's favor"

"Two against one isn't a fair vote", J.C argued. "It's like you guys are ganging up on me."

"We'll have a good reason to if you don't shut up", Prudence muttered a she polished her shotgun. It was the first time she'd spoken in nearly an hour. "Just calm down and try to relax – things aren't going to be changing around here anytime soon. The music's staying whether you like it or not."

"What do you mean changing?" J.C said. "It's not exactly the French Revolution here. Are you really planning something? We've been sitting here since midnight. If anyone came in here, we'd pretty much be fresh meat."

"She has a point, Prudence", Sadie said quietly.

She touched upon the issue carefully, choosing to stimulate it rather than attack it like a bull with its horns. She spoke it light a light suggestion to her sister – the same sister that, when faced in the same situation, would have fought for her opinion with brute force. Sadie thought of the summer days where she would wander into their patio to find her sister lathered with sweat, spread out on an exercise mat and seeming to gain more adrenaline from every pump and palpitation of her body. That was one of the things that scared her – the concept of girls who actually gained energy through every ordeal they put themselves through.

Sadie would have been the first to admit that her outlook was different. When faced with the smallest twinge of pain, it had always been her first choice to abandon her priorities. Her life had centered around finding her niche for so long – the one place where she could have a decent say in things – that she'd started to lose focus. Her desire to fit in had turned into a downward spiral. She cringed for a moment and considered thinking about her troubles – something she'd advised herself for a long time to put away – but considering the circumstances that she probably wouldn't live past nightfall, she let them come flowing in. The voices were girlish and shrieked with the glee and fervor of high school.

"_I heard the Mercedes girl was throwing up in the bathroom._

"…_she tried out for the team last year? _

_"The one with the weird brother…"_

"_Oh, yeah her…"_

"…_throwing up in the bathroom, can you believe it?"_

"…_she's like a twig…"_

"_And it was just to be on the team, too…"_

"_I heard the nurse sent her to the hospital.."_

"…_.stuffed herself like a pig…."_

"…_.it's sort of sad…"_

"…and you agree with me, right Sadie?"

Sadie blinked. She'd been so absorbed in her thoughts that she'd failed to realize J.C hadn't stopped talking. That was something that everybody had noticed about her. A girl who lived entirely in the moment and was more well liked in her mind than anyone else's, Sadie had never had much of a high opinion of her. It was commonplace to find her after school with her ragtag gang of hippy revolutionaries, usually out behind the gymnasium smoking pot or just loitering out by the football field. A few days ago Sadie would have said that she disliked her – maybe even detested her – but now the fact that she was sitting across from J.C Brooke just made her feel sad. _She doesn't belong here. None of us do…_

"Yeah", Sadie said quietly. "Yeah, you're right, J.C."

"So that's that" J.C said excitedly. "That makes two against one. Let's get out of this place."

"It's not that easy", Prudence said simply. "For all we know, staying in this place might have been what's kept us alive. For someone who's been beaten up so bad, I'm surprised you want to leave."

"I have stuff to do", J.C said. "Things out there might not be good, but they're better than here. We're just sitting duck. We're easy picking."

"Red shirts", Prudence muttered.

J.C glared. "What the hell are you talking about now?"

"It's from Star Trek", Prudence said. "Not that I watched it or anything. It's more of a pop culture tidbit kind of thing. The guy in the red shirt was always the one that got killed."

"I used to have an aunt", Prudence said. "Well, me and Sadie did anyway. Her dog gave birth to a whole litter of puppies – more than she could handle really. Our cousins wanted to keep them. I guess our aunt didn't take much of a liking to it. She drowned them in the upstairs bath tub while they were at school and never mentioned it again. She even pretended nothing happened. When they asked her about it a few years later, she said it was how life worked. Something about how only the strongest survived."

"I remember that", Sadie said shortly. "I remember hearing Mom talking to her over the phone."

"Yeah", Prudence sighed. "Pretty awful stuff, huh?"

"But that's worse than awful!" J.C said quietly. "It's….immoral…it's wrong…it's…it's…unconstitutional!"

"Unconstitutional?" Prudence said as she raised her eyebrow. There was a wide, cynical smirk on her face. "J.C Brooke is breaking into politics?"

"But it's wrong!" J.C cried. "You don't drown puppies because there's too many of them! You don't send your children away to have them kill eachother! This whole place – this stupid island! We don't belong out in a place like this. We're supposed to grow up and change."

"Alright", Prudence sighed. "That's it. I'm done listening to this. Do you really think that, J.C? Is that really what you think your life is about? _Change?"_

"Stop it, Prudence", Sadie said quickly. "You're just going to make things wor-

"No!" Prudence cried. "I'm not going to sit back and listen to this stupid bitch ramble on about her insecurities. If you asked her two days ago, her biggest goal in life would be to go to community college and waste her parent's money. Either that or she'd drop out in her junior year and marry her boyfriend! Hell, if he got her _pregnant_ her biggest worry would be if the baby would stop her from going to homecoming!"

"I wouldn't abandon my baby", J.C said quietly. Her eyes were starting to glisten and she stared out blankly into space.

"But now things are different!" Prudence continued. "Now instead of having to worry about her stupid high school bullshit, she has to actually look at herself. We don't know what's on the other side when we die, but as far as I'm concerned, consider this island your judgemen-

"That's enough, Prudence", Sadie cut in. "This isn't helping."

"For the love of God, Sadie-

"I believe in God", J.C said suddenly.

It caught the other two girls completely off guard. They turned slowly back to her and watched uncannily as she stared out at the bright sunlight radiating in through the windows of the diner. She traced her finger across the table's surface, guiding it back and forth over the ink faces of the kings and queens on the playing cards. She pursed her lips together before looking back at them.

"You were talking about what happens when you die", J.C said quietly. "Well, I believe in God. I think there has to be a reason behind all of this. That's what Zane always says anyway. He always told me he thinks there's some kind of higher purpose."

"Zane's crazy", Sadie said softly. "But I get what he's saying."

J.C stared. "Do you believe in God?"

"I believe that if he's not a sadist who wants to see us suffer, he's doing a lousy job of keeping us all on track."

"Well", J.C said. "Maybe we're supposed to suffer. Maybe that's how we earn our place in heaven."

"I don't like religion", Prudence said suddenly. "I can't make myself buy that kind of stuff."

"I know", J.C said suddenly, and to the other girls' surprise she was smiling. "I guess that makes you a pretty lousy person too."

There was another deafening silence in the diner that was only broken by the frantic thundering of music from the jukebox. The music was becoming even louder now as the song reached it's climax and the female voices all joined in until their choir seemed to blend together, almost mocking the girls in the diner in a way that was both sardonic and intimidating.

"Come to think of it", Sadie said. "I want that jukebox turned off too."

"You're waiting for an apology, aren't you?" Prudence asked.

"I'm waiting for a lot of things", J.C said. "But an apology would be a good place to start."

"I'm sorry J.C", Prudence sighed. "That was harsh. I'm just tired. This whole cabin fever thing is really starting to get to me. I get a loose lip sometimes. I don't mean anything by it, alright?' She paused. "I just don't want to see anyone get hurt. I guess I don't like looking at myself either. I'm afraid I won't like what I see."

J.C grinned. "Thanks! If we ever get out of here, maybe you will."

"Hey, don't talk like that", Prudence said warmly. "For all we know, there's probably a big-name terrorist group like Nine Lives or the Wild Seven that's going to parachute in here tomorrow morning and save us all. Then we'll walk out of here together singing kumabaya and get on a rescue boat. They'll be fireworks and everything."

J.C rolled her eyes. "Yeah, but-

_Scricccccchhh…_

A noise.

It was a soft scratching sound from above them. It could have been mistaken for a tree branch brushing against the diner's roof at first, but after a minute, it was able to retain a sense of shape and purpose. The sound wasn't accidental at all. The scratching quickly became scampering, akin to feet rustling against sandpaper or a cat slipping across a wax floor. It only took a moment for the girls to realize that the sound was coming directly above them.

Sadie's mouth dropped. "What the hell is that?"

"I don't know", Prudence said. "But if it tries coming in here, I'm blowing it to hell."

She didn't even have time to stand up with her shotgun before it happened.

The loudest sound of all arrived and made their ears ring. A gunshot roared from above the diner and all three of their heads turned abruptly to the window and watched as a bullet torpedoed downward into the ground from seemingly nowhere, burying itself in the leaves and sending up a spittle of dirt and soil that rain down like a grenade had been implanted underneath the earth. The bullet had arced downward, almost like it had been fired from the sky itself. The shot was enough to confirm their worries – even worse the fact that they hadn't made a break for it when they had the chance – but it still took somebody saying it to make it true.

"Guys", J.C stammered. "I…I think someone just climbed onto the roof."

* * *

Lea Passington (Girl #11) was back with avengeance. Quickly cocking her pistol, she gazed out from her viewing point above the diner with the eyes of a hawk. She patrolled the side of the roof with her shoulder sullen with blood that had leaked out of the gorge in her shoulder. It had been relatively easy to get onto the roof of the diner – the fact that the roof itself was slanted toward the ground made it an easy task to use the fence in the back to scramble up. She patrolled the sides of the roof slowly, taking a mental note of every window that was accessible to the girls inside. _Roof's not that big. Only about two windows on each side. Keep a good lookout and you're fine…_

"I have full ammunition", Lea yelled down toward the window. "Run out and you're dead."

She waited for a moment. Then she got the response of the quiet, indistinctive chatter inside the diner. There was a cluster of voices now – more than before - and at least one seemed to be visibly shaken. She was able to discern the quiet sound of whimpering from inside.

Closing her eyes and sitting down for a much needed rest, Lea rubbed her finger on the trigger.

Now all she had to do was wait for an escape.

* * *

There was a very simple reason for why those at the digging site had failed to receive Peter's distress call.

It was that Luke Graystone (Boy #5) had efficiently destroyed the walkie-talkie.

He was sitting against the equipment shed as the others worked, hugging his knees as he stared with a blank expression at his handiwork. He involuntarily fingered with the metal debris that lay in the dirt and traced paths back and forth. Then he closed his eyes and listened in a becalming sense of euphoria to the metallic clanking of shovels in the trench behind him. The others – the ones that Peter had dubbed, "the diggers", - were hard at work. There was a certain rhythm to it, and if he did his best to block out everything else, it was almost enough to make it seem like he'd done the right thing.

"_Not the right thing",_ Luke thought quickly. _"The smart thing."_

He glanced up wearily and looked around at their work site. Logan was hunched over the hole that was now brimming with the acrid chlorine they'd pumped in from the shed. Travis knelt beside her holding the hose and watching the oily substance drizzle in with a look of revulsion on his face. For a reason Luke couldn't even place, he hated both of them with a burning passion.

He glanced back down at the ruined walkie-talkie and thought of why he had done it. All in all, it did make a certain degree of sense – especially after everything he'd went through. Ever since nightfall the day before, Luke had felt like a skeptic. Skeptical when they'd stumbled onto the escape itself that could have also been labeled as a suicide mission; skeptical when they'd stood in the manor and listened to Peter's mindless ramblings that rallied the masses; even skeptical when they'd finished digging the trench and begun to pump the chlorine into the hole. He was skeptical, of course, of the simple fact that the escape was going to be all for naught.

"_They're all crazy",_ Luke thought wildly. _"Every last one of them. They're going through with some kind of sociopath's suicide mission like it's nothing. They're all just sucking hope threw a straw. This stupid plan has to end. Nobody gets out of here – it never happens. Why don't they see that?"_

But that had an even clearer answer. It was obvious that Luke was the only one that was seeing the bigger picture of everything that was going on. He was, after all, the very reason to blame for why they were there. He thought of that summer afternoon where he'd walked across the parking lot to the supermarket, the sun blaring down on his back and the sheet he'd contemplated filling out for weeks shaking in his sweaty palms. All he'd had to do was rush in and place the sheet in the empty bin beside the ATM. A crude caricature of Uncle Sam, standing six-feet tall with a face that was almost demonic, glared out at him as he placed the sheet into the bin. Above him, a red banner that had been ignored like a nuisance by most of the public proclaimed, _"Be A Patriot! Sign Up For The Program!"_

"_And that's that",_ Luke thought. _"Just like you were supposed to. Just like he told you. It was all for the greater good."_

Luke had always been a follower who went with the best option with little whim or reason. If selling somebody out was the best option, he was more than obliged to do it in an instant. All that mattered to him – all that had ever mattered – was keeping himself out of harm's way. In his mind, other people came second. It wasn't selfish – it was just the fact that the world worked when you couldn't trust anyone.

"_And even with that", _Luke thought. _"You were still convinced to sign up."_

Some of his earlier memories surrounded being in a van as he and his mother traveled to places that they never stayed in long enough to qualify as a home. The sense of nostalgia Luke felt from his early years – the quick snippets that he could look back on and try to dissect – were the images of roadside diners in the south and the sight of seagulls flapping over white bridges that rose for boats like twin mountains. The details themselves had never really come through. It seemed to be a fact that his father – somebody he had never really put any thought into at all - had left the family due to financial issues. He'd only asked his mother about it several times. The last had been when she'd been washing dishes in the kitchen and the steam that rose from the soapy water seemed to fill the kitchen. As she splashed water about, Luke had been sitting on the counter and swishing his legs. He'd obliviously asked where his father had went. Maureen Graystone, a brittle woman with graying hair and glasses, had simply said that he'd gone on, "vacation."

It was weird how some things could stay in your mind.

Things had moved in a wayward fashion for a while. After they'd left the place where he'd grown up, the towns that they'd stayed in blended together until it all just become one embodiment of his early years. The town's names and the feel of the houses and apartments came flashing through his mind. _Androscoggin. Blue house with shutters. Morristown. Smaller house with that Chinese restaurant across the street. Tesaquee. Apartment with the deli downstairs. Spanish Rivers. Bigger house on Washington Street by the elementary school._

That was when they really settled down. The neighborhood was nice aside from the small community of stoners and the education system ranked as one of the highest in the country. After being reassured he would be in the same place for quite awhile, Luke had done his best to feel casual. He was far from an outgoing boy and his demeanor was far from casual, but there was nothing necessarily off-putting about. Scraggly with dirty blonde hair usually tied back into a ponytail, he'd always stood out without veering too far away from the crowd. People would approach him, some would even try to be friends, but he would always push them away. If people came second, how could you bring yourself to trust them?

"_That's why you lied to them",_ Luke thought gloomily. _"That's why you told Mitch and Terry that story – the one about your dad and the cocaine. People will believe anything if you cry about it a lit-_

"How's it going?"

Luke glanced up in shock. "I…umm…what?"

He was only vaguely aware that somebody was walking over. Suddenly brought back to reality, he gazed up to see Travis Igolovosky walking toward him as casually as he would in a high school hallway. A pimply boy with an unpleasant demeanor to him, he always had the same glazed smirk on his face that seemed like he was mildly amused about something. Without even taking notice of him, Luke quickly scurried over and sat on the remains of the walkie-talkie, straightening himself up against the exterior of the equipment shed and doing his best to force a smile. His heart was beating and his face felt oily and warm from anxiety. _He didn't see it. Don't get all jumpy…_

"I said, 'how's it going?" Travis said with a scowl. "You look live you've just seen a ghost."

"There's plenty of ghosts on this island", Luke said with a grimace. "Or at least there will be when this whole thing is over."

"I'm really not much for philosophic bullshit", Travis said with a sigh. "I don't believe in ghosts. I believe in heaven and we're not going there anytime soon."

"So what happens when we get out of here?" Luke asked. "You're acting like we're going right back home. I'm picturing us in some kind of third-world country."

"To be honest man", Travis said. "I always felt out of place back home. I mean, guys push you around and shove you into lockers, and when they go off on the field and score touchdowns, people cheer for them like they're saints or something. You should feel like you accomplished something but you don't. You know there's something else waiting for you somewhere."

He watched cautiously as Travis knelt down against the equipment shed and sat down beside him. Luke instinctively scurried up against the wall and felt the hair stand up on the back of his neck.

"So what?" Luke asked quickly. "Are you actually glad that this happened?"

"No", Travis said quietly. "This is sick. It's like taking a big piss on humanity. I mean hey, I'm a pretty screwed up guy. I'll watch stuff blow up on in video games or movies just for the hell of it. On the other hand though, maybe we're here for a reason. We have probably have a purpose - even if if the bad stuff gets in the way."

"That's really what you think?" Luke asked darkly. "How do you explain calamity, disease, and genocide?"

"I don't know", Travis said. He paused. "I told you I'm not good with the philosophic stuff. My brother's the good guy in the family – with the sports and whatnot. All I know is that I don't want anyone to die, and you better bet my brother's included when I say that. I don't want to see Peter go either, but with a head as thick as his, I don't think I'll be able to talk him out of it anytime soon."

"Maybe he'll change his mind", Luke offered. "Maybe he'll think of another way."

"I've known Pete for awhile", Travis said. "He's so smart that he's pretty self-destructive – and that includes us getting caught in the crossfire. He's the kind of guy who would offer a serial killer out behind bars if he asked for a second chance. He believes in human rights and all that jazz. Tristan worships him. In the end, he's just like you and me."

Luke stared. "How?"

"He's scared", Travis said. He was smiling again now, almost like he'd been eager to explain himself. "Everyone here's scared. Hell, if things don't start coming together here soon, I'm going to get really scared."

"I've been thinking about back home a lot", Luke said. "It's sort of calming me down. Either that or it's making me go crazy. I guess either one is better than sitting here and doing nothing."

"What have you been thinking about?" Travis asked.

"Pretty much everything", Luke said. "Everybody that's dead and the way they used to be. Teachers that I had back in middle school. Comic books I read back when I was only old enough to look at the pictures". He paused. "I've thought about my dad a lot too."

"I've been thinking about my family too", Travis said solemnly. "I just hope to God they're not watching me and Tristan right now. Do you get along well with your dad?"

"He left when I was little", Luke said finally. "I live with my mom."

"That sucks", Travis said. "Do you remember him at all?"

"Not really", Luke said dismissively. "I mean, he left when I was really young. I never really cared enough to think about him. I mean, having a relative who walked out on you is better than having one who died in the program, right?"

"Do you remember anything?" Travis inquired. It looked like the program was the last thing he wanted to talk about.

"I remember growing up on the beach", Luke responded. "That was the first place we lived before we moved around and everything. I guess my family used to have a lot of money before they split up. I remember my dad tossing me up in the air in the ocean and catching me. I think about the smell a lot – salt water, I mean. It's sort of an important thing to me. Makes me feel safe, I guess."

"Things must have been better back then", Travis noted. "Not just for you. For everyone, really."

"He told me something though", Luke said. "That's the only thing I remember about him. I remember one day he took me out to the ocean and was throwing me and up and down like he always did. I guess it must have been pretty close to when they divorced because my mom wasn't at the beach with us – maybe she just wanted to give him a chance to say goodbye to me or something. The water was pretty cold that day so it must have been late in the summer. I remember after a few times of throwing me into the air, he stopped and told me something". He paused. "Christ man, it's weird that I can even remember it. It was such a long time ago."

"What did he tell you?'

"He told me not to get myself hurt", Luke said. "He told me the world was changing and he wanted me to do whatever I could to not get hurt. He told me that the world was going to change soon and I had to do whatever I could to stay alive – he told me to do everything I could to keep myself happy."

"You can't always act like that", Travis said. "What's life if you don't take risks?"

"It's not a world I want to live in", Luke said uncomfortably. "I just want to live."

"Hey guys!'

Travis didn't get a chance to reply. Their conversation ended abruptly when a newcomer arrived. The boys turned to see the massive figure of Logan Spruce (Girl #18) walking toward them with a bright smile on her face. Luke found it fascinating that a girl who had probably spent her whole life wallowing in her misery had now become the backbone of their group. It almost seemed like the game had given her a sense of purpose. The smile on her face – the same smile that was so blissfully unaware that the escape would never week – was what really frightened Luke._ Crazy. All these people are crazy.._

"Hey Logan", Travis said.

"Hey Travis", Logan said with a frown. "Nice job leaving me to dig the hole."

"I got tired", Travis admitted with a grin. "Tristan's the one built for that kind of stuff."

"We've got it covered", Logan said. She paused. "Things are coming together. We've got a problem though. I think we might have left the other walkie-talkie back at the manor. I can't find it anymore."

"That's too bad", Luke said quickly. He shuffled uncomfortably. "Do you think Peter's going to be pissed?"

"Probably", Logan said. "He told us to keep everything organized. I think I might have to drive back to the manor in the van and pick it up."

"I'll come with you", Travis said quickly. "You shouldn't wander off on the path alone."

"Nobody's going to attack a car", Logan said. "It'll take fifteen minutes tops. I'll just run in, grab the walkie-talkie, and drive back. I think Peter wanted us all to meet up by sundown. By then, Mitch and the others will probably have gotten half of the island united. Then we'll put this plan into action and sail out of here together."

"You're full of it", Luke muttered under his breathe.

Travis glanced over. "What did you say?"

Luke calmly retrieved the pistol from his side and fired two shots in quick succession, nailing both Travis and Logan point-blank in the head. He watched with grim fascination as their eyes went glassy and their faces became rigid, blood spurting from the side of their foreheads in twin pink mists in the sunlight. _It's all real. It's all real and it's all yo-_

"Luke, are you alright?"

Luke blinked. He squinted his eyes in the hot sun and realized Travis was still kneeling beside him. His reassuring smile was still plastered on his pimply face - almost superficial looking in Luke's eyes – and he remained completely unharmed. Logan was standing in front of them with an even phonier smile on her face. On instinct, Luke reflexively felt for a pistol holstered to his belt and got nothing. He only felt the metal scrapings of the walkie talkie edging up from underneath him. _Sunstroke, it's got to be sunstroke. You're going nuts, man. You're going crazy like all of them…_

"Sorry", Luke sighed. "I'm just sort of spaced out right now."

"You and everyone else", Travis laughed. He was in a good mood – Luke had never seen him in a good mood. "Just wait until we get out of here. You'll get a good rest tonight."

"Sure will", Luke said with a laugh. It sounded raunchy to him and he couldn't help but feel uneasy that it had come out nervous. "Do you remember where we parked the van, Logan?"

"It's right up the hill", Logan said with a grin. "The keys are in the car. I'll be fine. You guys keep doing what you're doing. Go over there and help out Travis with the hole. Don't work yourselves too hard."

The two of them half-heartedly waved goodbye to her as she trundled off toward the woods with her arms swinging absently at her side. The whole digging site was suddenly bathed in a fresh dose of sunlight that caused the twin pits of chlorine to gleam with a kind of holy radiance. The tropical sky seemed to glow to the two boys sitting against the shed, and for one of the first times since the game had started, there might as well have not been a problem in the world.

"She's different now", Travis mused. "She's so much happier now than she was at school."

"Yeah", Luke said softly. "Imagine that."

He watched as Logan left and didn't stop until she had completely vanished into the forest. Less than a minute later, he had forgotten her completely and was back to tracing his fingers in the dirt, occasionally glancing up at the forest itself and the few steps that would leave the escape as a distant memory and the game that he'd wrapped himself into his only reason for living.

A few minutes after that, he started to feel sick.

* * *

Jude Mercedes (Boy #11) scanned his eyes across the campsite with an impending migraine. Leaning against a tree and feeling more tired than he ever had in his life, he pictured himself standing like an old man, his hair gone snow white and the corneas in his eyes aged to a sickly yellow. He grimaced as he listened to the noise and activity coming from the campsite. He was able to discern the clanking of shovels along with the continual thumping of dirt being formed into piles.

His mind wandered back to the lessons. He thought of everything his father had told him – every single lie and truth – and tried his best to take it all in. It all had to be right in the end. If it wasn't, then everything he'd done would have been for nothing. People were expendable by nature – it was one of the most honest philosophies on life. How could it be wrong?

"Because it is", Jude thought wearily. "Because it's killing you."

He watched as one of the figures from the campsite slowly began to march into the forest. It was a grotesquely overweight girl with a sweaty face and hair tied up like a workman, trundling slowly down the trail. He studied her for a few seconds – taking in her face just as much as the footprints she left behind – before she vanished into the forest. Part of him, the human side that still remained just as much as ever, wanted to approach her. Not even manipulate her – just talk to her like a regular human being. But then there was the other part of him – the part that was starting to hear the voices all the more often now and remember all the lessons.

Jude suddenly had three epiphanies.

The first was that he hated his father.

The second was that his father had been right about everything.

The third was that he was about to go out and get another one.

Limping and feeling more tired than he ever had in his life, Jude staggered off down the path the girl had gone down with his intentions becoming greater with every step.

* * *

As the thirty-seventh hour of the Battle Royale neared its end, a boy named Miguel Chavez (Boy #3) stood on the high rocks on the eastern shore and considered the step that would send him plummeting down into the churning white waters below.

The place he was standing had gone unknown to any of the other competitors. Tucked into a stone alcove where the waves crashed its cargo of the sea's contents into the churning cove underneath him. An adventurer would have climbed down the rocky channel and onto the lower rocks themselves, gazing at the transient creatures that grew in the tide pools and oblivious to the crashing waves that would send all of their troubles washing away into the white, churning sea.

Miguel didn't consider himself an adventurer – in fact, he considered himself the very opposite. He looked down from the cliff at the crashing waters that seemed to seep under the island itself. More than anything else, he felt like a ghost of his former self. He hadn't looked at himself in more than half a day, but far from an optimist now that the circumstances were changing, he was able to divine a good sense of it. He pictured himself as a ragged mess of skin and bones, clad in a sweatshirt that had been torn and scorched into nothing more than a rag that hung obscenely over his shoulder. The heat was growing at every second and – virtually naked now aside from a pair of baggy sweatpants – he couldn't help but feel like he was walking inside a sweltering oven. He'd figured that standing by the sea would help him cool off, or at least wash his troubles away, but as it was turning out, it had done neither.

"_One step",_ Miguel thought absently. _"Just one step and it's all over."_

He closed his eyes and listened to the waves crashing below. His feet inched instinctively toward the edge of the cliff, somehow feeling cooler as his body swayed forward, but then he felt the wave of revulsion come in –- the sudden realization of what he was about to do that pulled him back every time he inched anywhere near the cliff.

It was all coming full circle now. Karma, in one of the biggest ways imaginable, was finally starting to become the epitome of what Miguel Chavez lived for. It was all elementary – that old, "eye for an eye", philosophy. If you lied to your friends, the game would take one away from you. If you kept lying, you'd lose another until you were alone and contemplating suicide on the side of a cliff. It hadn't been like that before. Back home, there'd been a sense of purpose – there hadn't been any kind of punishment at all. Life had been a simple as waking up on a Saturday morning when he was little and munching on dry cereal while cartoons blared on the television. Later on it became sitting in the courtyard with his friends and cracking jokes about girls, somehow getting them to laugh at his sense of humor every time.

"_They were good guys", _Miguel thought._ "We all were. At least until we got here."_

Feeling hazy as he stood by the cliff, his thoughts rambled to his father. Alfredo Chavez was the owner of a profitable food corporation located in the nearby business district of Anacadia. He was a gregarious man with dark eyes and a booming laugh that had sounded to a young Miguel like mountains breaking. Unlike most of the immigrants in the era, he was proud to say that he'd entered the country legally and worked his way through college. He'd then go on and say that life was all about circumstances gradually getting better. If things weren't going your way, you had to work hard to set things right.

"_There's six impossible things to do before breakfast",_ his father had said. _"One of them is liking yourself when you get up in the morning. The other five are for you to decide."_

That philosophy would always come during those uncomfortable dinner conversations where they discussed his future. When they came, Miguel would nod occasionally and bury his worries by chowing down on the seafood his father usually brought home for dinner. His father would go on about college choices and explain how there were two kinds of people in the world – the ones who could apply themselves and the ones that couldn't.

But his father hadn't been there in school. He hadn't seen the way Miguel had lied to his friends about his situation completely. He hadn't heard the stories that they'd all swallowed for the sole fact that they trusted her friends – the stories about growing up in Los Angeles and having to relocate after one of his perpetually corrupt teachers assaulted him for his ethnicity; the stories about numerous gang fights that he'd witnessed from his upstairs window; even the stories about how he'd gotten the small scar above his eyebrow in a schoolyard quarrel where another boy had pulled a switchblade on him.

None of us his friends had ever learned the truth that he'd simply fallen down the stairs of his house when he was six.

"_And that's why they believed you", _Miguel thought. _"They swallowed it all because they trusted you."_

And on the side of all of that, his father was still plaintively in the picture. He pictured him sitting in the living room with a book always spread out on his lap under his favorite reading lamp – usually pouring through Ernest Hemmingway or John Steinbeck – and purposefully asking Miguel how his day had gone he walked into a room. He even thought about those awful days where he'd come home and pull a crumpled report card out of his backpack – a report card that made the facts more than clear that he wasn't destined for an Ivy League school anytime soon.

His father wouldn't get mad. He would simply list the bad grades first before countering them out by listing the miniscule good ones.

"_We'll just have to try harder",_ his father would say as he ruffled his hair. _"Always room to get better, right chico?"_

Miguel grimaced and struggled to regain himself. He felt the frantic wave of revulsion again when he realized he was standing so close to the edge of the cliff. He backed away quickly and scrambled back over the rocks, breathing hard with tears welling up in the corner of his eyes. He couldn't do it – every time he walked toward the cliff, he would just end up walking back.

"_Lo siento, Papa",_ Miguel thought suddenly. _"I didn't mean it, Dad. I really didn't. It just sort of happened – I started lying about everything and I liked it too much to stop. They looked up to me. I just did it so they would like me. I didn't mean to get them all killed. I couldn't even stop it. David just freaked and Nathan came in so fa-_

Nathan…

That was the real source to blame. That, in fact, was the one reason that he had left to live. There was no use in admitting that the kid hadn't done anything wrong – he was a murderer and there was no redemption for that. Not just any murderer, but the killer of one of Miguel's closest friends. He cringed as he pictured David's body in his mind, his arms spread out in the tram station as it was jerked spasmodically by the bullets entering his body. You couldn't forgive murder. You could forgive a lot of things – maybe even lying – but not murder.

"_Show them you care",_ Miguel thought as his fists clenched. _"Show them all you're sorry and kill the bastard."_

He backed even further away from the cliff now. His body coursed with adrenaline and he felt his heart beating like a jackhammer. He closed his eyes and listened to the waves crashing that now seemed far off and distant. In the forest somewhere far away, he heard the faint sound of a gunshot going off but paid it little mind.

Miguel's whole life had been a circle of lies. Back home it hadn't mattered at all. It was just a way for him to gain reputation and it was better than having nothing to do. Now, more than anything else, he saw himself as a firm believer in karma. _What goes around, comes around. Find a purpose. Kill him. Kill him and prove them all wrong. Show you never meant it_

He stayed on the cliff for five more minutes. Then he walked away from the cliffs with the intention of never returning, regaining his sense of purpose with every second that Nathan Carpenter wasn't dead.

* * *

**No Students Eliminated**

* * *

**21 Students Remaining**


	40. Day 2: Hour 38: 21 Students Remaining

_The car came trundling along into the parking lot at a little past five-thirty. It circled through the morning fog for a few minutes, hesitant in finding a parking space and waving in and out between rows of cars like a tired dog after a long run. The car was specifically a rusted-old Buick and the man driving was well toned with a head of receding hair and a furrowed brow. His eyes were hidden ominously behind a pair of sunglasses that sat at the edge of a crooked nose. He drove slowly - his fingers tapping rhymetically against the steering wheel and searched for a spot. The morning fog reflected off his glasses in blank light and made him look like some kind of space traveler._

_The Buick circled the lot for several minutes before parking neatly in a faculty spot beside the school's administrative building. The man was not a faculty member –he'd never, in fact, set foot in the school in the entirety of his life._

_The man didn't stop the car when he parked, leaving the key in ignition with the exhaust pipe thrumming out into the mist. The car itself was spattered with dried mud - likely on the verge of pushing the ten-year marker – but if anything, the radio was as strong as ever. It stayed on as the car sat in the space, blaring out its music into the white Oklahoma morning through the car's half-open windows._

"_Shambala", Arthur Juntz, the driver, said. His face was unreadable and he might as well have been talking to himself."That's the name of the song. It's by The Doors."_

_His son, who was sitting in the passenger seat, glanced up. He was well-built boy with sharp features – almost feminine with high cheeks and a thin jaw line - that strongly echoed that of his mother. His demeanor, however, wasn't a smug one– he looked cool and calculating as he stared out the car window, readily prepared for anything with eyes that almost had a childlike sense of eagerness to them. He could have passed a nameless face in a crowd if it weren't for the one distinguishing feature that made him stand out – he wasn't dressed like a boy at all._

_"It's not by The Doors", Peter Juntz said softly. "It's by Three Dog Night. I know one of their songs when I hear it."_

"_They knew how to play", Arthur commented. It wasn't even clear which band he was talking about anymore. "Your mom and I used to go to all those concerts back before you were born. In fact, we met at one of them. You could say rock and roll is the reason you were born, Peter."_

"_That's great, Dad", Peter said shortly._

_He sat there and found himself glorying in the awkward silence between him and his father. It was a moment of victory, because with it came the simple fact of the matter that his father was trying to relate to him again. It was a commonplace thing to happen, especially when the two of them were driving alone to somewhere. A late-night run to the super market to pick up a jug of milk could turn into a pansophical argument if he gave it the chance. Whenever these attempts by his father came up – these offhand efforts to find common ground between them – they always ended badly. He savored the silence in the car, sitting there with the white sky foreboding outside._

"_Why'd you have to come to school so early?' Arthur asked._

"_It's election day", Peter said. "I have to rehearse my speech before I give it to the class today."_

"_Think you'll win?" Arthur said._

"_Yeah", Peter said. He wasn't smiling and he hadn't stopped staring out the window. "I'm pretty sure I will."_

"_That's good", Arthur said. There was a long pause, and then he said, "How's school?"_

"_Good", Peter said. He tapped his fingers on the glove compartment. "I'm thinking of moving up into honors classes. I'm going to talk to the supervisor next week"_

"_That's good", Arthur said. "That's really good." He paused again, this time longer. His eyes were vacant as he stared out into the white world outside. To his son, he almost looked frozen in time. The early morning light shone on his face and brought out all of his wrinkles – there was no denying that his dad was getting old now._

"_So", he continued after a moment. "Are there…well…nevermind…"_

_Peter glanced up sharply. "What? What were you going to say?"_

"_Nothing. It's nothing. What made you decide to go into honors?"_

"_Don't change the subject", Peter cut in. "What were you about to say to me?"_

"_It's not worth it. It was just something stupid. I caught myself in time. It doesn't really even make sense now that I think abou-_

"_Tell me what you said!" _

"_I wanted to know if there were any girls you had your eyes on!" Arthur shot back._

_His father was agitated now, and suddenly, the silence was no longer victorious. It made Peter feel dirty, and in a savage kind of way, it even made him feel bad for his father. He thought of the image of Arthur Juntz, recovering alcoholic with the tendency in the years leading up to his son's birth to lean toward stints of sobriety. Arthur Juntz with his reflective sunglasses and badly cultivated sideburns arcing out on his stone jaw. Arthur Juntz, who had fallen into a drunken stupor after his son's sexual leanings hadn't gone the way he'd expected._

_The stints had become more and more frequent after Peter had opened up to him, even going far even to cement him once again as the alcoholic that he'd been years ago. He'd cleaned up recently, but then again, that was a phrase with a shallow meaning. Cleaning up to Peter wasn't any different than grief itself – denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and finally acceptance. It was hard to tell which step his father was on, essentially for the fact that he hadn't laid a hand on his booze in roughly three months. It could have been that he was sticking to what he'd said only weeks ago, saying that Peter could have been born with three heads and he would still be perfectly content. Still, Peter was leaning more toward the idea of his sobriety stemming from his mother throwing out all the beer in the house._

"_I'm sorry", Arthur sighed. He tightened his hands on the steering wheel. "I guess you can see why I didn't want to ask."_

"_It's fine", Peter said. "You have the right to be disappointed." _

"_I'm not disappointed in you, Peter", Arthur said gently. "I never have been. I'm just concerned. Everybody is."_

"_You signed me up for counseling", Peter said sharply. "I'd call being analyzed by a shrink every Tuesday night a little more than being concerned."_

"_You said you liked counseling. You're the one that asked for the appointment tonight."_

"_What if I did?"_

"_Peter", Arthur said gently. "Think of it like this. You're a smart boy. Everybody knows you're a smart boy. The cross dressing is the least of our worries in the grand scheme of things. We can straighten that out later. What we're really concerned about is the way you're looking at things."_

_Peter raised an eyebrow. "Example?"_

"_I've heard you talking with your friends. We live in a good world, Peter. It's a world where you can be perfectly happy as long as you keep your toes in line. The things you're talking about scare me – they scare your mother even more, but that's a different story. I heard you talking with those twins-_

"_I've known Tristan and Travis for years", Peter said sharply. "Hell, you've known them since I was in kindergarten. You can say their names."_

"_Fair enough. I heard you talking to Tristan and Travis in your room last weekend. You were talking about the whole execution case in Delgado at that riot. The attack wasn't unprovoked, Peter. That kid wasn't a good person. None of the kids there were. He assaulted those officers. They had every right to do what they did to him."_

"_Was that before or after they put a bullet in his skull?" Peter asked._

"_He was part of the bad crowd", Arthur said. His temple was throbbing and Peter was pleased to see he was at a loss for words. "You have a good voice, Peter. Instead of speaking up for the bad crowd, we want to steer you in the right direction."_

"_I know who I want to speak up for", Peter said. _

"_Peter", Arthur said solidly. "I think your mouth speaks louder than your fist. You says these things, but you don't really mean them. When it comes to following through on things, you don't know what to do"_

"_I like having opinions", Peter said calmly. He was angry but trying his best not to show it. "It's one of the only things I'm good at."_

"_Everyone has opinions", Arthur said. "The problem is that when it comes down to it, yours are usually right."_

"_And why is that a bad th-_

"_It's bad", Arthur cut in abruptly. "Because the way things are going in this country, your opinions are the ones liable to get you killed."_

_They didn't speak in the car for roughly a minute after that. He thought of what his father had said, and somewhere down the line, realized there may have been some truth in it. Lost in his thoughts and now more uncomfortable than he'd been with his father in a long time, Peter hurriedly grabbed his book bag from under the car seat and unlocked the door._

"_Guess I'll go now", Peter said. "Thanks for the ride."_

"_Why did I drive you here again?" Arthur said finally._

"_We had to come to school early before the speech", Peter said quietly. "All the candidates have to rehearse."_

"_Good luck."_

"_Thanks", Peter said as he stepped out of the door. Before he closed the door, he flashed a smile. "But I won't need it."_

* * *

Two in the afternoon.

It had become almost like a fetish. Peter Juntz (Boy #9) stood above the washbowl in the upstairs bathroom, running his fingers across his raw, pink face and running it down with the sink's lukewarm water. There was a certain routine to it, and every time he finished, he immediately started again. It had only been a short time before when he'd been sprawled out on the staircase in the foyer, laying in a mess that could have went akin to a drunken stupor. He thought of how he'd thrown up – he'd _actually_ thrown up right there on the staircase. It hadn't taken long to clean up of course, but the facts still remained. There wasn't any use denying it anymore – the situation was finally beginning to catch up to him.

"_Chlorine",_ Peter thought wildly. _"It's flammable – it's full-proof too."_

He thought of the two tanks of chlorine in the equipment shed by the school, waiting for the moment that very night where the kamikaze would take place – the time where both he and the school would go out with a bang. When he was done thinking of that, he sighed and turned off the faucet with a dull hissing sound. Then he glanced at himself in the mirror – he'd already discarded his wig. The artificial blonde hair had stunk so badly of cigarettes and vomit that he'd had to simply thrown it into the bathtub like a filthy rag. Now, staring at himself in the mirror, he was able to look at himself for what he was. His face was hollow and frightened – it wasn't the face of someone who knew what they were doing. More than anything, it was the face of somebody who was finally getting the gist of things – someone who was slowly starting to realize what they'd set themselves out to do.

"_Someone who's a murderer_", Peter thought simply and shuddered.

That was another factor in the equation. He thought of Roxy Patterson standing in the hallway at school with her books folded across her chest, leaning against a locker with her nose wrinkling as she laughed. That was one of the things that stood out about her now – unlike most of the people that he'd come into contact with, he could now safely say that Roxy's laugh had been real. Not phony for the sake of it – everything she'd smiled at had been meaningful or at least has some kind of underlying substance to it. She'd been a good girl.

"_Good enough to trust you too",_ Peter thought in a daze. _"And that got her sent on a death march."_

But that was the whole thing. The entire mission – in the end – was a death march. It had been a death march when he'd stood in front of the school and watched the twins assembling the very operation that would end his life. It had been a death march when they'd found the car and their feelings had been elated to new heights. It had even been a death march when he'd stood atop the staircase and delivered the speech that had started the downward spiral of his revolution. He thought of all the smiling faces now – all the fists raised in the air in defiance toward a common goal – and started to feel sick.

"_But if it was a death march the whole time",_ Peter thought. _"Why are you just realizing it now?"_

But that was simple enough. The answer was clear as crystal. He wasn't a good person – he was a liar, a manipulator, and in a few moments, he would be a coward as well as a betrayer. The escape had given everyone hope. It had paved a path for the shape of things to come. It had made it seem like things were actually progressing – it made it seem like things were actually going to change. And in the middle of that, standing atop the dirt mound like a hero, he'd be standing there ready to meet his maker. It had all sounded so good on paper – the whole equation had come together so well. _You shouldn't be scared. You shouldn't be scared. You shouldn't be sc-_

"_I don't want to die",_ Peter thought for a moment. He considered the words, and after a moment, he was able to speak them outloud: "Christ, I don't want to die."

From the window of the third-floor bathroom, he was able to stare out across the forest's company and watch as the ocean winds rustled at the foliage like indistinctive chatter. The air was humid; the sky was a turned crescent over the field of trees that rose from the hills and knolls; after awhile, they finally gave way to white rays that gleamed over the lucid blue waters of the Gulf of Mexico in the far distance. The class had been reduced to half its original size. The odds were in favor of surviving for awhile – or at least until he had enough time to mull things over in his mind.

"Peter?"

A voice.

Feeling like he'd just awoken from a dream, Peter's eyes shot instinctively to the bathroom door. He watched as the shadows of sneakers crept underneath the doorway, walking slowly down the hallway as their owner called out his name. It took the voice repeating a second time before he was able to discern whom it was – the voice was a girl's.

"Peter? You up here? It's Mare."

Reacting on first instinct, Peter quickly stood atop the toilet seat to avoid the possibility of her somehow seeing his feet from underneath the doorway. He glanced toward the window again and did a double-take. There was a robin perched on the windowsill now. It stared at him blankly with its beady eyes, and after a startled moment, it fluttered away. Even when it was gone, he didn't take his eyes away from the window.

"Peter? Where are you? The others sent me to go check up on you. Everyone's sort of walking around and wondering what the hell they're supposed to do. I didn't want to rush you or anything, but we really need to plan what's going on."

He listened as she called out his name a few more times, albeit more frustrated every time she said it. His heart beating with the palpitations of a jackhammer, he knelt down on the cushioned seat and wondered if it would be possible for him to drop dead right there. In those old stories they'd read in English class, women in the seventeenth century always theatrically succumbed to depression when they lost their husbands. They would fall over clutching their hearts or commit suicide by throwing themselves over rocky cliffs into the ocean. He wondered if something similar could result from his faith in the escape. Part of him was starting to wish that it would.

"Peter? Look, everyone's upset right now. You're not doing yourself any good by staying up here. I've never been much for the whole team unity thing, but the least we should do is stay together."

There was another moment of silence. He listened to the shuffle of her feet moving around in the hallway and did his best to stay quiet. He closed his eyes and started to wonder if he would cry. He didn't, and for some reason, that was starting to become one of the hardest things to do in the world.

"_It took you two hours to plan an escape", _Peter thought wildly._ "Why did it take you two days to cry?"_

The silence reigned for about thirty more seconds. Then, in barely more than a hushed whisper from beyond the doorway, he heard her again:

"Son of a bitch…"

Then there was only the soft thudding of Mare walking down the hallway and finally descending down the staircase. He breathed a sigh of relief. With his thoughts rambling back and forth, he thought back to the early morning with his father only a few months ago. He wistfully remembered the song – the one that had been pounding out of his dad's rusted old radio on that white morning. It could have been by Three Dog Night, but with nothing seeming definite anymore, he was starting to believe it was by The Doors. _Wash away my troubles, wash away my pain, with the rain in Shambala…_

That was a good philosophy. Wash the whole escape away. Pretend it never happened. Starting off with a clean slate wasn't necessarily an alternative, but if anything, he'd be able to abandon everything he'd said. In the end, he really didn't see himself as any different than a dictator. He'd promised change. He'd promised redemption and unity. He'd even put himself up on the pedestal and convinced himself that it was all true. The hero always went down making a point. The hero always went down knowing that he'd changed as a human being. Never really figuring himself as much of a hero, Peter was the first now to admit this was a sham.

He glanced up at the windowsill again. There wasn't any long strand of thoughts before he did it – he didn't even finish considering his options. What he did in the next few minutes stemmed only from fear and a savage need to survive.

Standing up from the toilet seat, Peter raised a fist and effectively made a hole in the center of the window's screen. It chipped his fingernails and he felt warm blood smear down his hand, but right now, he didn't care at all. Concentrating and fearing somebody else would walk up the stairs any second, he tore at the screen with his sweaty grip until he'd tore down the entire thing and destroyed the window. He thought of the robin that he'd seen only minutes ago and the way that it had stood there and soared away like it was the most natural thing in the world.

"_Then again, that robin didn't have a collar around its neck",_ Peter thought dully.

He stared at the opening in the window for a moment and considered all of them. Mitch, Terry, Zane, Luke, Logan, Tristan, Travis, and Mare. _Nine people. It could have been ten, but that was before things got bad. Right now, it's just nine. That's only nine people you're letting down. Just nine. Work your way out of this mess alone…_

Taking in a deep breath, Peter knelt upward and began to shimmy his way out the third-floor window. It immediately gave way to a slanted roof sullen with dirt and rainwater that had collected in cobwebbed ponds. Whoever had owned the manor before clearly had spent more time making the thing look impressive to the eye alone and glossed over the things that people didn't see. He stepped out slowly from the bathroom and got down on all fours, creeping down on the tiles and feeling unearthly like an explorer – a boy scout perhaps. With the fact that he'd just washed up notwithstanding, he felt dirty and gritty – worse than he ever had in the entirety of his life. Feeling his entire body shaking, he locked eyes on the long drainage pipe on the side of the roof – the pipe that sloped all the way down into a gutter on the ground floor.

"_This is it",_ Peter thought quickly. _'This is your last move."_

Crawling over and silently praying the roof wouldn't cave in from his body weight, Peter grasped his hands on the rusty pipe and gave it a firm shake. It wobbled slightly, but considering he would only be using it once, it was secure enough. He placed a foot down on the side of the pipe and felt it scrape noisily before he swung his other leg over and grasped the pipe like a fireman sliding down a pole. He lowered himself down cautiously, closing his eyes as he built a mental escalator in his mind. _Three stories. Two stories. One story…_

There was no word to describe the relief he felt when he touched solid ground. The long gutter had deposited him out beside the front porch – the same porch that he'd watched half of his escape crew walk out on hours before only to come back with one of their friends missing. Doing his best not to look at it, and hoping all the while that nobody in the manor had noticed him somehow, he did a quick double take as he glanced back up at the high bathroom window that he'd climbed down from.

"_Wash it away",_ Peter thought. _"Wash it all away."_

And so turning away from the manor and going into a brisk walk, Peter departed from the biggest mistake he'd made in his entire life. It only took a few steps toward the woods before he started running. He was born to run after all.

* * *

_It would have been an understatement to say that the speech had gone well - if anything, it had all but guaranteed his victory. _

_Peter Juntz stood by the side of the doorway as the entire student body of Spanish Rivers High School filed out of the sweltering auditorium. The air was amidst with a restless, youthful kind of energy. He watched as students chattered enthusiastically in tight groups; teachers filing out on the sidelines talked casually to one another as they turned to give him appraising looks; supporters of other candidates, some of them clad in custom shirts made solely for the support of their campaign, walked out glumly together like war veterans returning home for the first time. The doors emptied the students out into the school's main lobby – a room ironically larger than the auditorium itself that was usually a haphazard mess of cafeteria tables with the persistent smell of a janitor's closet and cough syrup._

_The bell rang. It was high and clear sound that felt nasally and rusty to the ears. The crowd began to shuffle out of the auditorium with more of a sense of purpose now, filing off different hallways to get to their third period class, but Peter continued to stand unmoving by the doorway, scanning his eyes over the heads of his classmates._

_The other candidates, seeing the election not done with until the polls were closed on Monday, passed out what could only be misconstrued as bribes with forced grins on their faces. He took quick glimpses of the people in that crowd – the ones that had been entirely unprepared for a speech that Peter had planned for months. George Fielder, a baseball star and poster student who had seemed the obvious choice to win, was now sulking as he held out a tray of wrapped lollipops as a final bribe, each adorned with a small leaflet proclaiming, "FIELDER FOR PREZ." Sadie Mercedes was standing near him with a crestfallen look on her face, offering out to the crowd a plate of blueberry muffins that she'd seemingly baked just for the sake of election week. Scanning his sharp eyes down the line, Peter took note of the other candidates. Billy Lutzky. Chris Barrister. Emma Holloway. All people who'd tried. All people who'd poured an unnecessary amount of money into a trivial high school election. All people who hadn't been as prepared for the race as him._

"_Great speech, Pete!"_

"_Yo Peter, nice job!"_

"_I'll tell all my friends to vote for you!"_

"_You did it man!"_

_Peter smiled at all the kind words from his classmates as they walked by, feeling just as fulfilled about the election as irrevocably awkward. It hadn't just gone well – when he'd finished talking up on the podium, he might as well have been issuing the new world order judging by the response he'd gotten. The applause had started softly and hesitant in the back of the room, a dull mutter as his classmates absorbed everything he'd said, before a wave of thunderous clapping swept through the room – some of his closer friends had even stood up with his campaign posters to give a standing ovation. Peter had stood up there gleaming while it happened, feeling like some kind of glorified silhouette in a history book, savoring the moment for the simple fact that the goal of winning the election hadn't been easy – in fact, it hadn't been much of a tangible goal at all._

_One of the first problems had been his campaign itself. While most of the candidates had plastered every visible inch of the school with fliers and bribed their classmates, Peter had made a solid oath in the beginning of his campaign to avoid everything that could be seen as unprofessional. Advertising, when you really looked at it, was an unnecessary commodity – all that mattered was the speech. Danielle Mercero, a bespectacled girl on the flag squad who had volunteered as his campaign manager, had labeled this as, "social suicide." Peter had dismissed this at all – if suicide was his intention in the election, he would have bribed the student body for all it was worth._

_And for the last few weeks, that had been his life. While everyone else had toiled over the election and spent vigorous nights making posters speckled with glitter, Peter had carefully planned a speech. He'd stand in his upstairs bathroom and practice slowly, eyeing his presence and trying to get a feeling from the confidence that radiated from him. If he could sell the show, he could win the election. In the end, words were the most powerful thing in the world – while people who took action were only occasionally given what they wanted, the people who spoke up were guaranteed it. There were thousands of words. Words that could give people hope, words that could advocate change, and even words that could turn the whole election around._

_And they had._

_Peter smiled as he stood by the crowd, doing his best to feel modest as his classmates beamed at him. He'd easily rehearsed the speech hundreds of time. It started off simply enough, stating his name and his candidacy. Then it went on to address the real problems of the school – the issues of bullying, cliques, and exclusive social groups that very few people had he courage to divulge into in a high school election. From there, he dug under the surface until it became clear Peter wasn't just attacking the school in his speech – he was attacking society itself. He talked about their generation as a whole, choosing his words carefully and getting momentum from every hushed whisper he heard in the audience. When the end of the speech had finally arrived, the applause had started somewhere in the back of the room. Standing up there on the podium with the school roaring with applause, Peter Juntz might as well have been some kind of revolutionary figure._

"_Hey Peter!'_

_He turned and locked eyes with a girl bustling her way through the sea of students filing out of the auditorium. She was a mature-looking girl with dark hair, dressed in a conservative way that made her seem like a polished businesswoman. A wooden cross dangled on a rope from around her neck. She was smiling ear-to-ear, and under the fluorescent lights of the school's lobby, her braces flashed out light from her mouth. At once, Peter smiled at the familiar face. It was Risa Ridgeway – a close friend and one of the handful of people that had been running against him_

"_Nice job, all star", Risa said with a good-natured smirk. "You didn't tell me you were going to get up there and pull a Winston Churchill on me."_

"_I didn't think they'd like it that much", Peter said. "I mean, when I was rehearsing it last night, I kept wondering what would happen if-_

"_That's the problem with you", Risa said. "You always think about the, "what-ifs.' As far as you're concerned right now, you have this election in the bag. Everyone's happy about it. You have the right to be too."_

_"Your speech was good too, Risa", Peter said arguably. He even managed to return that bright smile on her face. "I mean, you understood the issues way better than I do. When they asked you those questions about the budget cuts you-_

"_Please", Risa said with a laugh. "You kicked my ass. Don't be modest about it. If I'm fine with losing, you should be fine with winning. Invite me to visit the oval office sometime."_

_Peter grinned. "Will do."_

_He watched as she smiled one last time before hurrying off into the crowd. He stood there for a few minutes before wandering off through the crowd, getting acknowledgement from a few familiar faces – friends from his classes, teachers who had wanted to see him do well, even one of the custodians that he'd casually talked to. He smiled in an offhand effort, sort of glad that the whole thing was done with. _

"_Hey Peter!"_

_He turned and caught sight of Tristan Igolovosky standing beside him. He was smiling, but it seemed rather forced. It was a dry and cynical smirk, the smile of someone who was plaintively aware of something and unwilling to say it. He was sitting on one of the cafeteria tables with his arms laying casually at his side. It wasn't like him to be alone at all._

"_Looks like you won the election", Tristan said. "I've never heard anyone clap that hard in my life."_

"_Heat of the moment, I guess", Peter said. "It could be a landslide though. Chris got a lot of cheering too."_

"_Chris Barrister…", Tristan said simply. "Belongs in politics just as much as I belong in the school choir. The only reason he got claps was because people expected him to. The same went for Risa. You came from the side, Peter. That's what really got them cheering for you."_

_Peter smirked. "I guess the whole, 'dressing-like-a-girl', get up doesn't scream class president, huh?"_

"_That didn't have anything to do with it", Tristan said quietly. "You could have been an alien walking up there and they still would have cheered for you at the end. It was the way you talked to them, Peter. That was what did it. It was your speech."_

"_I just threw in a few big words", Peter laughed. "It got the job done."_

"_Peter", Tristan said coldly. "You know that's not what did it."_

_It was only now that Peter realized how cold his expression was. His smirk was gone now. He looked pessimistic and now more alone than ever – it was probably for the fact that he seemed like the only person that understood the true nature of what Peter's speech had meant. He sighed and glanced up at his friend wearily, far from thrilled to say what he knew had to be said. It wasn't until after a moment that he actually spoke._

_"I'm your friend, Peter", Tristan said. "But if you're going to keep doing this, I'm downright scared of you. When you stood up there and started talking, it was almost like you were brainwashing everyone. You promised all these things and they got on the edge of their seats. It was like we were at some kind of rally – it wasn't even a high school election anymore. Hell, it was like being talked down to by a dictator."_

"_What was so bad about my spee-_

"_Rehearse it again and look at everything you said. Halfway in, you stopped talking about the school. You started talking about this country and how our generation is the one that has the power to change things. You did it subtly, but it was still there. You dropped enough hints to show that you want anarchy. I may not be that smart, but I know when it comes to speeches like that, they're usually for a reason."_

"_So what?" Peter said with a nervous smile. "Are you comparing me to Hitler?"_

"_No", Tristan said quietly. "You're the opposite of Hitler. You rally people without even knowing it."_

"_What do you mean?'_

"_God damn it Peter, don't you get it? You stand up there and use your big words and promise change. Everything's just having an opinion to you – it's never actually doing something about it. It's just blabbering on about things and never following through. You can stand there and talk about change and all the problems in this goddamned country of ours, but you never deliver. You never follow through."_

"_So what?" Peter said. His voice was trembling now. "That makes me a bad person?"_

"_No", Tristan said. "It just makes you a coward – that's even worse."_

_The words hung heavily in the air between the two boys. Behind them, they heard the sound of the last of the students filing off into different hallways to get to class. Peter had algebra next, but at this point, school really didn't seem to matter anymore. In fact, it was the last place he wanted to go. He watched as Tristan started to eye him wearily and seemed slightly taken aback – it looked like he'd just realized the bare truth of what he'd said. The silent tension only went on for a few more moments before he spoke again._

"_Look, I'm sorry", Tristan sighed. "I shouldn't have said all of that. It just sort of creeped me out, alright? I've known you forever and it didn't seem like you talking up there. It seemed like somebody else."_

"_Point taken, I guess", Peter said. He wasn't really sure how to respond._

"_Y'know", Tristan said. "The guys on the baseball team are throwing a party at Schrader's house tonight after the game. You're welcome to come if you want."_

"_I would", Peter replied. "but I have an appointment tonight."_

"_With who?" Tristan asked with a raised eyebrow. "Your doctor?"_

"_Yeah", Peter said quietly. He paused for a moment before continuing. "Yeah, I guess you could say that."_

* * *

Logan Spruce (Girl #18) swatted a hanging branch out of the way with her machete. The sky was graying now and the air felt humid like the inside of a bathhouse. There was another storm coming. She marched forward like a soldier of war, the front of her shirt drenched in sweat and her other arm cradled in what could best be described as a makeshift cast. Her wounded arm felt heavy like a towel clogged with water – she felt it beat absently against her chest as she walked, occasionally getting a fresh dose of pain. She gritted her teeth every time it happened, but this did little to slow her down. Her steps were heavy in the mud and there was little sign of her trek stopping anytime soon.

It was really amazing what the human body was capable of. Even when pain was coursing through it, even when biological function seemed unlikely, it was ultimately a concept of mind over matter. In the end, adrenaline or even just motivation had the ability to override pain. It was a perpetual question for anyone in medical school: how badly does the patient want to survive?

Logan didn't consider herself a patient now, but with all of that aside, it was miraculous with the human body was capable of. Even when pain was coursing through it, with the proper stimulation, all the hurt could seem insignificant if there was a goal in sight – a tunnel vision that gave you a reason to live. Some would call it a constant. Others would call it limitations. Some people would just label it as a reason to go on living.

In the mind of Logan Spruce, she saw it even simpler terms. It was hope.

Mind over matter hadn't been her philosophy upon arriving in the game – in fact, if you wanted an epitome for Logan's feelings toward the game, it might as well have been 'dead on arrival'. She thought of how she'd felt when she's stepped out of the school into that warm, tropical night and felt like an explorer in uncharted territory. The collar on her neck had felt cold and unnatural and the air bitter and humid with the stench of salt brine and the sound of chattering insects in the jungle. She'd pictured armed men in the forest canopy, practiced snipers angling down their weapons to her head. Logan had felt alone – more than anything else though, she'd felt scared.

When you knew you were unhealthy, when you knew something that couldn't be blamed solely on heredity or bad luck was growing inside you, you developed a different view point on things. You couldn't help but feel cynical when people gave you advice for the future, knowing the all the while that the future you were heading toward was a quiet visit to the doctor's office where you would hear the bad news. That was nothing new to Logan – her mother had taken her on more than a few appointments for her to get the gist of things.

The news had gotten worse and worse every time. It had been gentle at first, casual comments minding her weight and advising her on diet plans for young children. Then it had slowly progressed from worry to concern, advising her mother to hire a nutritionist and perhaps sign her up for contact sports. Every visit got progressively worse as things went on. The comments weren't what bothered Logan at school – neither were the uncanny stares in the girl's locker room. Those were the things that you could smile at and learn to live with. Logan was content living in her own world of euphoria where only the positive thoughts – the thoughts of the people she loved – were the ones that affected her.

What was hard to live with, however, was the idea of everything being your fault your whole life.

Logan did her best not to grimace as another wave of pain swept up her arm. She felt the first spatter of raindrops fall down on her face, and miraculously, managed to smile a little – it seemed like everything was going wrong. The sky was a searing white now and the wind was starting to whip through the trees and bring the acrid smell of the tide wafting through the forest. The old Logan wouldn't have been smiling – the old Logan, in fact, wouldn't have been walking into an impending storm with a mangled arm. Then again, that was only a clear indication of how much the game had changed her.

"_Mind over matter",_ Logan thought again. _"That's the ticket."_

Things were different now, of course. She was no longer an oddity in the crowd – everyone was now just as scared as she was. Along with that, she had become an advocate for change. The escape mission had elevated her esteem to new heights, and with night on the horizon, it seemed a growing fact every second that their plan would work. Logan couldn't remember the last time she'd felt so proud of herself – the last time she'd felt a reason to hope for anything. Maybe that was the reason the new Logan could felt a reason to smile in the rain.

Up ahead on the path, Logan locked eyes on the rusty, old AMC Gremlin that was parked neatly off on the side of the trail. The low tree branches and the unstable terrain had made it too hard for them to drive it any closer to the digging site. Still, despite being cramped and unsuitable for travel, the car had proven to be resilient companion on their escape mission. She thought about how she'd found it in the junkyard – the only car on the island that had miraculously still had keys in it. If that wasn't an underlying truth that there was some good on the island, Logan didn't know what was.

Logan quickly unlocked the door and sat down in the driver's seat. She turned the key in the ignition and listened as the engine thrummed to life with deafening clarity. Her eyes scanned the narrow trail in front of her and her foot revved on the pedal, eager and prepared for anything coming her way.

What she wasn't prepared for, however, was the image of Peter Juntz dashing across the trail.

Logan's jaw dropped. "Peter?"

She'd only caught a quick glimpse of him as he dashed across the trail in front of her. He was breathing heavily and he seemed to be gradually slowing down, his adrenaline slowly burning out of him. For a split second she could have sworn he turned his head and locked eyes on the car. Then he turned and ran even faster and dashed off into the woods on the other side of the trail.

Logan feared for the worst. Not wasting a second, she jumped out of the car as quickly as she could and took off running after him. In the abruptness of the situation, she'd left the machete lying in the passenger seat. While she was by no means an athlete whatsoever, Logan did have a strange talent for being able to handle the pain of running incredibly well. Every pain and palpitation in her gut acted only as an obscene source of power as she took off after Peter.

"Come back! It's me, Logan!"

She dashed into the forest and was able to catch a glimpse of him before he vanished behind a tree. Pushing herself even faster and breathing like a rhinoceros, Logan grimaced as she forced herself between trees. Her whole body felt warm and wet underneath her sweatshirt. She caught up to him quickly until he was only several feet in front of her – in the pure absurdity of the situation, she never thought once that he could have been running away from her.

Logan grabbed onto Peter's arm roughly and stopped him dead in his tracks. For a moment it seemed like he was going to topple to the ground, but instead, he was merely swung around to face her.

"Peter, what the hell is goin-

"I'm sorry, Logan", Peter blubbered through his tears. "I'm so sorry!"

It was Peter in a way that she'd never seen him before. His face was contorted in a mess of snot and tears and he seemed to be indecisive of what to say next, his mouth opening but no discernable words coming out. For a moment it seemed like he was going to attempt to break away, maybe even fight her, but instead he fell into her shoulder in a rumpled heap.

"It's all my fault", Peter wailed. _"It's all my fault!" _

"What...what happened?" Logan said. The whole thing seemed amazingly surreal to her. She felt like a great wave that she'd anticipated for a long time was about to crash in behind her shoulder. "Is someone chasing you? Did something happen at the manor? What happened to everyone else? Are they okay?"

"I can't tell you", Peter muttered. He sniffled and his tears started to subside. It almost seemed like he was being comforted by her large presence. "I really can't."

"Is anyone dead?" Logan asked in a hushed whisper. "Please, just tell me if anyone's d-

"No one's dead", Peter said softly. His voice was suddenly harsh and cold. She'd never heard him talk like this before. "Nobody's dead, nobody's missing, and nobody's hurt but me."

Logan stared. "Peter, what are you talking about?"

"It all fell apart", Peter said. "I tried to keep it together. I tried to make things good I tried to keep thinking in the right direction, but it wasn't enough. It all just fell apart and I had to be the one to run out."

"What are you talking abo-

"You heard the announcements, didn't you?" Peter said. "You heard them, right?"

"We don't have any intercom at the campsite anymore", Logan said. "Your friend Travis tried to prove he was useful by dismantling it and the whole thing beeped and shut down. We got sort of scared and told him to stop screwing around with that kind of stuff. We kept thinking they would blow our collars up or something." She paused for a moment than her voice became alarmed. "What about the announcements? They're not all dead, are they Peter? Don't tell me they're all dead!"

"I can't tell you anything", Peter said as he wiped away the last of his tears. "If I told you, you'd probably hate me."

"Then let's start from the beginning", Logan said. "I want you to tell me the whole truth."

* * *

It took awhile for Peter to get it all out. Nearly ten minutes had passed by the time he'd finished the entire story. By then they were sitting down in the grassy knoll with the thunder booming overhead, the sky apocalyptic white and the smell of brine swishing in from the ocean. Peter seemed a façade of his former self by the time he finished talking and he stared out blankly at the ground, his finger tracing circles in the dirt with no real rhyme or reason. Logan sat behind him with a look of complete indifference on her face – she was conflicted with so many thoughts that none of them were able to show over the other.

"I sent them out", Peter said simply. "I sent them out and she died. That's what happened."

"Roxy", Logan said. She said the name slowly, testing it out on her tongue. It had the surreal feel of a memorial service. The old Logan would have broken down at this, but in the game, the new one had cried herself dry of tears. "It had to be Roxy, didn't it?"

"It's like an equation", Peter said with a final sniffle. "There's constants and variables. That's the way I looked at it anyway. You don't pay attention to the variables – you don't count them because they change all the time and you can't predict them. I looked at this whole thing like an equation, Logan. I just didn't know how it was going to turn out."

"So now you're just going to bail out on it?" Logan said in disbelief. "You're just going to pretend it never happened?'

"If you hadn't stopped me, I probably would have ran until my heart gave out.

"Peter", Logan said firmly. "There's a lot of things I know you're capable of doing in this game, but if there's one thing I'm not going to let you do, it's bail out on us now."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying we need to go for a walk."

"It's raining, Logan."

"Then that makes it even better", Logan said. "Maybe you'll think better when the sun starts coming out."

"I don't like where you're going", Peter said.

"How about this?" Logan asked softly. "We'll take the long walk back to the campsite so you can finish filling me. Then when we get back, we'll sit down with everyone else. You'll tell them everything you just told me, then we'll figure everything out together."

"I can't", Peter said. "I just ca-

"You can", Logan said firmly. She felt like she was on to something, maybe even right about something, so it only seemed right to smile. "And you'll do it whether you like it or not."

* * *

Darren Warner (Boy #20) was pretty sure he saw them. He didn't know for sure, because as far as he was concerned, he was in a world of hurt. He wanted to fall down on the ground and lay there, because if anything, lying down would be reassurance that things were going to be all right. He kept walking though, moving involuntarily like some kind of wind-up doll. His walk was lopsided with his back hunched up toward the sky, the front of his shirt stained with blood and sweat.

Darren knew he was doing something wrong. He must have been doing something wrong because he wasn't home yet. He'd been given an order – an order by an adult nonetheless. When an adult said things, you didn't have a choice but to do them. That was what his mother had always said anyway. He pictured his mother standing in their sunlit kitchen in spring, her graying hair tied back into a bun. His mother's face was worn and tired-looking, the face of somebody who had seen too much in a short life. Darren didn't see that though. All he saw was the picture of the kitchen. The air was always fragrant from the air fresheners around the house and the image was picturesque and colorful, the image of a young boy sitting on a counter with his mother baking. He thought about that image as hard as he could, but for some reason, it wasn't coming back.

He'd started to cry roughly half an hour ago. He'd tried to stop the tears at first, his childhood a constant reminder that tears didn't get you anywhere, but he couldn't stop. He wasn't in pain – it was the frustration of all of it that had gotten to him. They'd told him to get rid of them all – if he got rid of all of them, he'd be able to go home. It had been simple enough in the beginning, but now, things had changed. This island was a bad place. It was full of people running around. People that didn't make any sense. People that wanted to hurt him.

But he saw them now. Squinting his eyes in the rain, Darren stood in the mud as he peered through the foliage. He saw two people walking slowly through the treeline, deep in sentimental conversation. Part of him felt angry, but the other part felt left out. He had a surreal fantasy for a second, the image of him walking with them and understanding what they were talking about. The image didn't happen however – it remained just as perennially absent as the image of him returning home to his mother.

Sniffling as he cocked the trigger of his Glock, Darren whimpered and somehow found the strength to keep walking.

* * *

"You're disappointed", Peter Juntz (Boy #9) said. "Just admit it."

"I'm not disappointed", Logan Spruce (Girl #18) replied. "I'm just not sure what to think anymore."

The two of them had been walking for what seemed like fifteen minutes. Their steps were short and their faces were blank, each of them caught in their own elaborate dilemma. It had started to rain several moments ago and the air was filled with the battering of rain falling against the jungle's canopy. It made it seem like hundreds of people were whispering around them, all of them plotting their own secrets. It wasn't too far-fetched to say the same about the two of them.

"What made it happen, Peter?" Logan asked after a moment. "What made it all come crashing down?"

"I started to think more", Peter said shortly. He stepped on a twig that crunched audibly. "I really started to think about everything that's been going on. It all sort of piled up. I've never felt like that before."

"Maybe that's because you don't let it show", Logan said. "It's like something pulled a cork inside you and everything rushed out at once."

"It wasn't like that though", Peter argued. "I mean, this morning I would have said this plan was the best thing to ever hit the world. Hell, I felt like I was the best thing to ever hit the world. I felt like everything was going perfectly and I could have been struck by lightning and kept going with it."

"You did a lot of talking", Logan said. "Was that hard for you?"

"No", Peter said. His tears were long gone by now and he spoke in a quiet voice of a broken person. "No, I do it all the time. I just say things that I don't mean sometimes. It's pretty much the natural thing to do when something like this happens."

"What?" Logan said sharply. Her voice was rising now and her true feelings toward what had happened ago were starting to come out. Moments ago, Peter would have felt deserving of her scorn – now, he was actually fearful. "Lying to your friends is a natural reaction?"

"I didn't lie", Peter shot back. "If you had your friends staring at you and wishing for a plan, you would say something to. You would say something even if you weren't willing to go through with it."

"I don't have any real friends", Logan said. There should have been sadness in her voice, but instead, there was cynical wisdom. She almost seemed proud of what she was saying. "At least I didn't until I came into this game. But if I did, they'd be the kind of people that I'd tell the truth to. They'd be the kind of people that would know everything about me."

"Maybe some things are better left unsaid", Peter sighed.

"Maybe some people are better off silent", Logan retorted.

"Fair enough", Peter said and paused for a moment. "Do you expect me to go through with this now?"

"I expect you to say something", Logan said gently. "I expect you to tell them the truth."

"They'll kill me", Peter said. "I motivated them. I got them all hell-bent on getting out of here. People like Zane or Mare, they're not fighting because they want to prove anything. They're just fighting because they're unhappy. They'll just keep going until they don't have anything left in them and burn out. If I told them the truth, they'd hurt me."

"Maybe they will", Logan said. "And if they do, I'll be the first one up there to hold them back."

"And why's that?"

"Because no matter what's happened Peter, no matter what crazy thoughts go through your head, I'm not going to forget that you're the one that got me on the right track. You're the one that made me think I could survive in this game. And for that, I'm not going to let anything you say change the facts."

"So what?" Peter asked. "You really think I'm a good person?"

"No", Logan said bluntly. "I don't. There's very few people out there who can fit into that category, and when you really look at it, we're not one of them. But I think talking with everyone would be a good place to start."

At that moment, the rain turned into a torrential downpour. There was a nearly silent crack of thunder in the sky that seemed to bring life to the jungle. The sky was a searing white and the air suddenly became misty and wet as they walked beside eachother, the ground quickly becoming deep mud underneath their feet.

"Well, this sucks", Peter said softly. He thought about everything that had happened for a second, and somehow, even managed to let out a wry laugh.

"It's jungle love baby", said Logan as she smiled back at him. "and it's driving me mad."

"Check that out", Peter said suddenly.

The two of them were walking by what appeared to be a red bungalow that had sunken into the earth due to water erosion. The building sat there in a strange, lopsided fashion like it was standing on broken stilts. The porch lay in shambles with termite-eaten wood drenched beyond comprehension by the storm. A single basement window was level to the ground.

"New bachelor pad?" Logan asked cheekily.

"No", Peter said quietly. "It kind of creeps me out to be honest."

"You kind of have to wonder who lived here before we got here", Logan pondered.

"Probably rich old people", Peter replied. He was starting to feel uneasy again and he didn't know why. "I saw a lot of big mansions off on the east coast. I think its mainly just retired people with money and tourists stopping by in the winter."

"It's weird though", Logan said. "It feels like we're walking on their graves. They must have cleared out of here fast. Most of the houses that I peeked into earlier looked like they were just getting ready to sit down for dinner."

"Quick and easy removal", Peter said. "It happens all the ti-

The shot was loud and came with frightening clarity that hurt both of their ears. Peter felt his hair ruffled as the bullet whizzed only inches above his head and went whizzing onward. He was eerily reminded of baseball games when he was little and the deafening sound the players had made when the bat had connected with the ball. It had sounded to a young Peter like the thunderous tremor of mountains breaking apart.

The two of them turned around at the same time. At first all they saw was a silhouette in the rain, a dark figure standing out in bold contrast to the hostile whiteness of the storm around them. It took a moment for Peter to discern that it was a boy, and it took him a second longer to realize exactly who it was. The figure was large with an unshaven face that clearly showed he was a couple of years older than them. His face had a strange demeanor to it was sunken-in eyes and a head that seemed almost out of proportion with his body. His eyes were wide and he stared at them curiously, almost like they were unwelcome explorers on native soil.

"_Darren Warner",_ Peter thought wildly. Everything he'd said with Logan was now ceasing to matter. _"He's going to be the one to do it."_

"Let's get out of here", Logan said breathlessly. She tugged at his arm and struggled to force him up from the ground. "Peter, let's go."

But Peter didn't move at first. He stood there as she tugged at him in way that could have been construed as catatonic, gaping at Darren like they were about to engage in a duel. The boy's pistol hung at his side and he craned his neck and stared at Peter, almost befuddled by the concept of him even being there. He stared at him in the rain for what seemed like a long time, not making any indication of even reaching for his pistol. Finally, after what seemed like an enormous internal conflict, he opened his mouth and spoke.

"Hi", Darren said. He spoke in a voice that was surprisingly high for someone so large.

"Hey", muttered Peter. His mind was blank and none of his senses were working. He couldn't think of how to respond.

And that was when Darren raised his pistol into the air again. Peter suddenly felt a wave of pain sweep up his arm as Logan dug her fingernails deeply into his arm. Whatever odd mental state he'd been in was suddenly broken as he heard her loud voice by his ear.

"Go!" Logan screamed. "Run!"

The two of them took off into the jungle with the rain pouring down relentlessly from the white sky. The storm had turned the ground to mud and their feet sloshed deep into the earth, coating their ankles with grime as they scrambled and ran between trees. They listened to the loud cracks of pistol shots behind them, some of which imbedded themselves into trees and sent splinters of bark flying like shrapnel. They didn't seem to be going anywhere – they just seemed to be making sharp turns around trees to hide from quick shots. The whole world felt like a surreal maze, and almost eerily as he ran through the storm, Peter was reminded uncannily of Lewis Carroll stories. He likened himself to Alice – a stranger in a strange place, no goal in mind other than following his white rabbit. He felt his mind rambling from one obscure subject to the next. Peter was starting to feel like his mind was falling apart.

"He's coming!" Logan called back. "Go faster!"

There was another shot from behind him. This one narrowly whizzed by his ear and Peter watched as it buried itself deep into one of the trees in front of her. It took him a moment to realize that they hadn't gone very far at all. They'd seemingly backtracked and were now back by that decrepit-looking bungalow.

"There's no time!" Logan screamed. "Just keep going! Over there, look!"

His eyes had locked on what looked like a heavy tree that had fallen down in the middle of the clearing. The branches lay in a haphazard pile while the trunk eventually gave way to somewhat of a grotto where the tree had stood before. Peter thought back to when he was little and how his backyard had once gotten infested with termites. His mother had been forced to call an exterminator to salve their garden in chemicals until what looked like a fine layer of mist was rising from the grass. The base of the tree in front of him had lost its foundation and lay lopsided, exposing the small opening underneath like some kind of rabbit hole.

Neither Logan nor Peter wasted a second. Holding each other's hands as they dashed through the rain, the two of them quickly reached the derooted tree and quickly slid down into the darkness. The sound of the rain was muffled and Peter could smell his rancid breathe in the confined space. The air inside was moist and humid inside and the only sound was the wet chattering of insects beneath the earth.

"Are we safe?" Peter muttered.

"No", Logan said. "No, we're not."

The two of them glanced up through the small opening in the crevasse underneath the tree. They spotted the figure of Darren moving and seemingly lurching in the rain, walking in circles with the pistol swinging loosely at his side. It looked like he was looking for them and wasn't willing to leave anytime soon. Peter stared at him with an awestruck look on his face and then glanced at Logan. He thought of everything they'd said on their walk. Then he thought of the idea of dying and wondered if you felt the bullet. Was it a sudden fade to darkness, or did you feel the bullet penetrating into your bony cradle in a sharp burst of pain. His heart pounding in his chest, Peter started to breathe heavily and consider his options. Everything had happened so fast.

"We have to make a run for it, Peter", Logan urged. "We have to run now!"

"It's all my fault" Peter muttered suddenly. His eyes were suddenly wide and alarmed. Any progress they'd made on their walk together was diminishing. "It's all my fault, Logan, I can't go on any furth-

And that was when she slapped him. It was a hard slap that was wet and warm from the tropical rainstorm. He felt the sting of it ring throughout his face, but if anything, it was what brought him back to a semblance of reality. His eyes felt unfocused and he gawked at the image of Logan sitting in front of him, her face unreadable and coursing with adrenaline. After a moment, he was able to discern something very different about her eyes – they were pitiful eyes, almost pleading for him to say something. For one of the first times in his life, Peter Juntz was at a loss for words.

"Peter", Logan whispered. "If you hadn't found me, I would have been dead by now. You're the one that told me everything. You're the one that made it seem like I was worth something out here. I believed everything you told me. I thought we had a chance to get out of here. I trusted you – everybody who you brought together trusted you. Please, don't do this now. Please."

The words hit him hard and jarred him in an unwelcome fashion to the real world. He stared at her in the shadows, and somehow, saw all of their faces in there – everyone that was going to get hurt because of this. Tristan with his perpetual loyalty. Mitch with his blind faith. Zane in his nearly mental desire to prove a point. Then, at the very end, he somehow saw his own face in the mess – not the way it was now, but the way it had been before. Blissful and unaware. Smiling without a care in the world. Then he thought of what Tristan had said only about a month ago – when the two of them had been sitting together after his speech. _It makes you a coward, that's even worse…_

It all happened so fast:

"_I was scared, Logan!"_ Peter howled. _"I was so scared!"_

And that was when he leapt away from her. He scurried out into the wet mud, crawling out from under the overturned tree and felt the torrent of warm rain crash down on his head. Then he started to run faster than he ever had in his life, waiting for the shadowy figure of Darren Warner behind him to unload a bullet into his skull. He felt dazed as he ran. His head felt as light as a feather and his world comically surreal like he was caught in some kind of elaborate dream. His feet thumping into the mud, Peter ran away from everything. _Logan. Darren. The escape. _Part of him wanted to scream, but the other half – the one that had been suppressed the entire game – now felt elated. _It's over. It's all over. You're fre-_

Peter had dashed directly in front of the decrepit-looking bungalow that they'd passed only minutes before. He craned his neck for a second and he saw a flash of metal in the basement window – the one that went eye-level to the ground. They hadn't noticed it before, but now, the metal nearly gleamed in the pouring rain. It took him a second to realize somebody in the bungalow was aiming a weapon out the window.

And that was when he heard the whizzing sound.

* * *

"_I just want to talk to you, Peter. I just want to make this work for everyone."_

_Peter Juntz did his best to relax in the leather armchair. The air in the doctor's office was cool and inviting. There must have been an air freshener somewhere because it smelled like pine trees. The room was adorned with banners pictures of cartoon children on the wall, all of them linking hands and representing what seemed like every race on earth in an effort to be politically correct. Motivational posters were plastered everywhere, bold letters spelling out fortune cookie philosophies like, "Life is an uncharted river", or, "Sadness is the first step toward happiness." These were accompanied by idealistic pictures of woodland rivers or colorful plains. It made Peter feel like he was being brainwashed._

_His doctor was named Randall and he sat across from him behind a sturdy oak desk. His full name was written all over the office on golden plaques and certificates that had been artfully framed and embroidered with gold borders, but for the sake of communication between them, he had advised Peter to call him by his first name. He said he didn't want Peter to view their meetings as appointments. In fact, he wanted him to see it as a casual visit to an old friend's house._

_Randall was a well-built man with auburn hair and a smooth shave that eventually sloped off into thick sideburns. He wore a heavy amount of cologne that stank up his office. His eyes were squinted and he had an odd way of surveying people, looking them up and down like a bird of prey. He was sociable enough though, and although he was never tell his father, Peter found himself oddly comforted by his visits to his doctor._

"_Not much", Peter said after thinking for a minute. "I think I won my school election."_

"_That's good", Randall said as he scribbled something down on his clipboard. His eyes were completely expressionless. "That's very good. I want you to give yourself a pat on the back for that, Peter. That's the progress that we've been talking about."_

"_Yeah", Peter said quietly. "That's progress alright."_

"_You don't seem excited about it", Randall said gently. "Care to tell me why?"_

"_It's nothing", Peter sighed. "I mean, everything went well. The speech was great and everyone seemed to like it. It felt great standing up there and having everyone cheering for me. I mean, I felt like I united our high school, and that's saying something."_

"_Unified", Randall repeated. He said it slowly, trying out the word. "What do you mean by, 'unified'?"_

"_I don't know", Peter said. He really had to think about that one. "I guess it made me feel good to see everyone happy. I felt like I'd really changed things. I mean, seeing all of those different people all cheering for one thing was great. It made me feel like I accomplished something."_

"_Why do you want to unify your class?" Randall inquired. "Any particular reason?"_

"_I guess it's like a small victory for me", Peter said. "I mean, when you look at the world you see everyone's kind of lost. We're all just wandering around and nobody has any hope anymore. It makes me feel good to see everyone together."_

"_I find that interesting", Randall said. He was still scribbling things down in his notepad. "Very, very interesting."_

_Peter stared. "Why?'_

"_Well, I can't think of many people your age that would say that – especially in high school. Most people just go with the flow because they're afraid of being left out. The fact that you want to change things makes you pretty special. Wouldn't you say so?"_

"_I guess…"_

"_And not just in your school either", Randall continued. "You don't just get your satisfaction from just that. The way I see it, Peter, your school is like a little society. It may not be the most structured of societies, but it's a society nonetheless. When you get up there on that podium and talk, it makes you feel special. It makes you think you're doing something. You want to change the world. I think your only problem is that you don't know how to go about doing it."_

"_You don't have to analyze me like that", Peter said firmly. The session was leaning in a direction he didn't want to go. "You don't have to treat me like I'm some kind of freak."_

"_You're not an oddity, Peter", Randall said. His voice was infinitely patient. "I've dealt with cases here that vary from yours. Women suffering from post-partom depression. Men so obese they walk around with a cloud of stench around with them because they haven't bathed properly in years. Teenage girls fearing the prospect of telling their parents that they're pregnant. You're not a rare occurrence, Peter. In fact, compared to some of my other cases, I'd say you're perfectly normal."_

"_I'm not perfectly normal", Peter said bitterly. "Trust me, I would know if I was."_

"_I never said you weren't. On the other hand, there are issues that I'd like to talk about. Issues that you avoid every time that we come in here."_

"_Like what?"_

"_I don't mean the issues your parents want me to discuss", Randall said. "The way you dress or even the way you think isn't what concerns me about you. It's what you're able to do to other people."_

"_It's not like I manipulated anyone", Peter said sharply. "I just gave them what they wanted."_

"_Peter", Randall said calmly. "I read your speech at our last appointment. Not only did you criticize everything the government was doing, but you also said that your generation was going to be the one to stand up and do something about it. That's not giving people what they want to hear. It's pretending you're going to do something about it when you're really not."_

"_Are you saying I'm a fraud?" Peter shot back._

"_Peter", Randall said in a gentle voice. "I think your biggest problem is that you lie to yourself without even realizing it."_

_The air in the office suddenly felt stuffy and uncomfortable. It was the first time Peter could ever remember wanting to leave his appointments. They were usually a healthy experience – a quick and efficient way to get his thoughts out. Now, he was starting to view it as the shallow definition of what it was. Psychotherapy. He was being analyzed by a shrink, and the worst part was that everything the shrink was saying was the valid truth._

"_I'm sorry if that caught you off guard", Randall said. "I didn't want to make you feel bad."_

"_It's fine", Peter sighed. "I guess….I guess somebody had to tell me sooner or later."_

"_Let me tell you this", Randall said. He leant in closer toward him like he was telling a dark secret. "When it really comes down to it, there's a simple reason why anybody wants people to listen to them – it's because they're lonely. If you find one day that you're the one up on the pedestal talking, don't do it just because you're lonely. Do it because you want to prove a point. Do it because you want your voice to be heard. That's when talking really matters."_

"_Alright", Peter said. He'd never felt more awkward in his life._

"_How do you feel now?"_

"_Good", Peter continued. He paused for a moment before continuing. "I don't think I want to be class president anymore."_

_Randall looked mildly amused. "Thinking of resigning?"_

"_The girl I ran against would do a better job", Peter said. "Her name's Risa and she knows what she's talking about. It doesn't really feel like a victory to me anyway. I feel like I'm all talk and no action."_

"_Maybe you are", Randall said. "Maybe you aren't. I guess you'll have to wait one day and find out. You'll only know when the situation calls for it. The bottom line right now is that you have a lot of changing to do this year. Are you up for it?"_

"_Yeah", Peter said and even managed to smile. "Yeah, I'm game."  
_

"_Good", Randall said with his eyes twinkling. "I feel like this session's been one of the best that we've had in awhile. I'm sorry we had to cut it short, but I do have another patient after you. A boy that goes to your school, I'm pretty sure. Anyway, I hope you feel better about all of this."_

_There was a quick exchange of goodbyes before Peter left in a hurry. He thought about everything as he walked down the hallway, and by the time he reached the staircase, he was feeling elated. By the time he was hurrying down the steps of the old apartment complex, he was at the top of the world. He saw it was raining when he walked out the back door, but feeling content and capable, he smiled and took the storm in stride, even going far enough to swing a defiant fist in the air that went akin to thunder rumbling in the distance. He locked eyes on the flashing car headlights across the parking lot, breaking into a brisk jog as he hurried off to his ride home._

_The year was going to be a good one._

* * *

It happened instantly.

Almost as a natural instinct, Peter's hand rose up in the rain as if he was Moses standing out to part the Red Sea. The look on his face was of ambiguous uncertainty, utterly unsure of what was about to happen and even more uncertain of where he would end because of it. He stood there as a dark silhouette in the light that was beginning to peek through the dark trees, caught in space and time like an M.C Escher print. The whizzing sound that had pierced through the air so suddenly – almost like the world's fastest whiskey bottle being uncorked – was cut off with soft impact that almost went unnoticeable in the short time that was allowed for it all to happen. His whole body stiffened for a moment and he looked like material fit for a landscape painting.

Staring out for that millisecond in time, Logan gawked at the egg-shaped object that was now soaring toward Peter's open palm like a torpedo.

"Peter!" Logan screamed. "It's a gren-

Her words were cut off by the sound of the fragmentation grenade detonating and filling the air with harsh, white light that seemed to engulf the whole clearing in an instant. Her face felt scorched with heat, and almost as an instinct, she staggered backward into the tree trunk with her body drenched with rain.

And then that short moment of space and time, Logan went and watched with dazzled, squinted eyes as Peter Juntz was blown apart.

* * *

Adam Spencers (Boy #15) had watched them pass earlier. His finger had been shaking on the trigger, but somehow, he'd been unable to press it. Now he stared out from the window of his private bungalow. His heart had skipped a beat when he'd heard the sound of commotion outside, and as a sign of just what the game was doing to all of them, it had now seemed like a natural instinct to reach for the grenade launcher and pull the trigger with his sweaty fingers. It helped to figure himself as a sniper in battle – a poster boy in one of those history textbooks for Vietnam – positioned behind enemy lines to take out the threat. He wasn't sure exactly who he'd gotten this time, but if anything, things were real now. _You did it. You actually killed somebody. This is all real, you actually did it!_

He watched in awe as the boy that had been running abruptly stopped in his tracks. The grenade landed in his outstretched arm. The detonation was loud and rang like the aftermath of a jet taking off. When he winced through the harsh light, Adam could see a bloody slab of arm flying through the air. It hit a tree and flopped obscenely for a moment before it tumbled down into the dirt.

"_Good God, let's eat",_ Adam thought blankly. Then he started to reload.

* * *

It had all happened so fast. One minute Peter had been running by the bungalow. The next he'd been engulfed in a fiery explosion. There was a quick flash in time, a snippet of his hand outstretched in the air to catch something, before he simply vanished in a white and fiery sunder of flesh, blood, and bone.

"PETER!'

Everything seemed to speed up now into a frantic sense of hyper reality. The slow, everlasting moment of Peter catching the grenade was now a memory. What looked like half of his body fell over limply to the ground beside the tree trunk. His face looked vertically split in half like an overripe coconut and half of his torso had been blown off in the explosion. The air around him was filled with flaming, bloody chunks that fell to the ground like a meteor shower.

A slab of arm came flying out of the white light, tendons and veins hanging out obscenely from the elbow like angel hair pasta. It flopped obscenely against a tree and rolled over with its fingers arced and cradled like a monkey's paw. She saw the image of Peter standing in the white light again, his body frozen in time and every muscle and bone inside him sculpted by Carrara marble. She processed it slowly, still unclear of exactly what had happened. It seemed comically unreal. He'd been there one minute and gone the next. Only a few hours ago, they'd been sitting in the car together. There'd been a purpose then – they'd been on the road to change. She thought dimly of a girl who'd started the game slumped in a junkyard. A girl who'd progressed and put everything behind her. A girl who had been dead on the inside ever since the game had started, and with her reflection a constant reminder, had been coming closer to death every day. Death and Logan were hardly strangers.

"_Then why does it feel so bad now?"_ Logan thought desperately.

She didn't cry. The abruptness of the death of Peter Juntz – the one person to have ever given her hope only to fall apart miserably himself – had left her in an odd state of disbelief. She glanced across the clearing and spotted a bewildered looking Darren Warner standing in the rain. He looked confused, angry, and pitiful, eyeing the boy's corpse eagle-sprawled out on the ground and charred to the bone by fiery shrapnel. He was making strange noises. It took a moment for Logan to realize that he was whimpering and crying for some reason.

"_Let it all out, Darren",_ Logan's mind gibbered. The thoughts were unnatural and she tried pushing them away, but they still came rushing in. _"You're allowed to be sad. If you had any idea who you just killed, you'd have even more of a reason to feel the way you do. He was a good person – someone with ideas. They didn't end up in the right place, but he didn't want things to turn out this way. He got a bad dose of what this game does to you. It's like the song says, isn't it? It's jungle love baby, and it's driving me ma-_

There was suddenly another sharp whizzing sound followed by a second explosion. Logan blinked and watched as a second grenade narrowly missed Darren and was sent flying into a tree roughly twenty feet away from him. It detonated with a bang that somehow seemed louder than the first one. Darren wailed again and she realized that a small piece of the fiery metal had scalded him. He stumbled away from the clearing in a lopsided kind of run, whimpering in the rain and muttering something under his breathe.

"_You have to get out of here too",_ Logan quickly. _"You have to let them all know. You have to be the one to bring in the bad news."_

She rose up slowly from the ground with her heart nearly thundering in her chest. Unable to hold it back, she wretched horribly and coughed up something that seemed like it had been stuffed back in her throat for ages. Struggling to see straight in the warm rain, she started to jog toward the treeline.

It had happened quickly. That was the best way to describe it. In the last day, the prospect of finding hope in the game had ping-ponged back and forth until it was hard to make out the lines of what was good and what was bad anymore. She pictured everyone waiting at the manor or the digging site – everyone in good spirits with the idea that their leader knew what he was doing. It made her sick – even more than that, it made her angry. That was the worst part. As far as Peter Juntz was concerned, she didn't know what to think anymore.

Logan screamed mindlessly into the white sky over Cuna Cielo and kept running. She heard a third grenade being fired only seconds later.

* * *

Jude Mercedes (Boy #11) was feeling like a passing observer. He'd been following them through the jungle with observant eyes the whole time, staying just out of eye's view and doing his best to stay as stealthy as possible. He felt tired and ancient like an old man walking down from the high hill above his village, weathered and cynical with wisdom that he didn't want to hold anymore. He'd begun to feel lightheaded several hours ago, and shortly after that, he'd started to feel nauseated. He no longer smiled his confident grin – his face was broken like a porcelain doll that had been artfully cracked on the floor. His hollow, lifeless eyes now only solidified the image.

Jude had seen it all. He scanned out wearily from the treeline now, staring at the sunken-in bungalow where the flying grenade has come from. The corpse of Peter Juntz now lay in a rumpled heap on the jungle floor, his head broken like an overripe fruit and his body charred and blackened to the bone. He lay eagle-sprawled and stared vacantly up at the rain, his mouth and eyes filling with water as he looked at the sky he couldn't see anymore. The humidity would cause his body to decompose even faster. After that, he'd be lunch for the carrion birds.

Jude winced as he started to walk away from the clearing into the jungle. The rain was slowly subsiding into a drizzle with the echoing of thunder moving out across the Gulf of Mexico. Jude reflected on everything that he'd seen – he thought about watching Logan stepping toward the van and wondering what he would end up doing to her; he thought about Peter dashing out of the woods and Logan running after him; then he thought of the image of Peter standing in the white light like some kind of religious figure before he'd been speckled with fiery shrapnel and laid to rest. A few hours ago it would have made him feel content, maybe even have guaranteed the idea that people were worth it after all, but now it just made him feel alone.

Up until now, Jude Mercedes had never quite realized how alone he was. He'd been raised to believe that it hadn't mattered. His mind rambled back to family portraits that now hung back in their dining room. He thought of the one that sat above the fireplace, an obscenely impressionable picture of a family of five. A blonde woman, two dirty blonde girls, and a redheaded man with a redheaded son. The man's hand was on the boy's shoulder and he smiled at the camera with an aura to him that seemed to radiate confidence. The boy was no different – in fact, he could have been a mirror image of his father. Everybody in the picture was smiling. It was a small detail, but looking back at it now, it was one that Jude picked up among the rest.

Jude hadn't seen his father in years. It hadn't been like that when he was younger. Back then, he'd seen him every day. He thought of sitting in his father's bedroom on his bed with wild eyes as his father spoke to him, dissecting humanity inside out and telling his son the cogs and gears of how people worked. His mother had never found out – she'd been too preoccupied with driving her daughters around or spending her time with her book club in her den. That was another detail he remembered now. He'd always been able to hear his mother's book club during the lessons, almost like surreal background music drifting up the staircase and through every nook and cranny of their large home. He thought of his mother's voice drifting up silently from downstairs buried underneath the smooth voice of his father just beside him, rambling on about themes of socio-sexual interaction and corrupted marriage in western literature. It reminded Jude of why he'd stopped reading books several years ago.

"_But then the incident came",_ Jude thought simply. _"Then the incident came and he was out of the picture for good."_

That was true too. He hadn't heard from his father ever since the incident, and as far as he was concerned, that was a good thing. He'd learned everything he needed to know from his father, and with him cleanly removed from the picture, there was no reason to learn anymore. As far as Jude knew, his father has lost everything when he'd left the family – his money, his connections, and even his job that rendered his psychology degree null and void.

Jude walked for roughly five more minutes before he heard the whimpering. It was soft and almost inaudible, the sound of somebody who was utterly alone and discontent with anyone bothering them. At first he thought it was in his head, but after a minute, he realized he was actually hearing this one.

He finally saw it roughly a minute later when he turned a sharp corner and realized exactly where it was coming from. His first glimpse of it was a white sneaker jutting out from beside the tree. After a quick crane of his neck, Jude was able to discern that there was somebody sitting there and crying – a boy by the looks of it, and a large one too. The whimpering was pitiful and deplorable when you really looked at it, the living embodiment to Jude of exactly what the game was doing. The image of boy crying in the forest might as well have been the epitome of the program itself.

It only took him another step forward for him to realize who it was. When he did, his entire body became still and he took a step back. The boy was Darren Warner (Boy #20) and he was sitting with his wet face buried in his heavy hands. He seemed blissfully unaware of Jude's presence, and every moment or so, he would stare up at the sky and let out a long howl that was punctured every time in the end by a hearty sob. It almost looked like he had given up completely.

Jude's heart suddenly started to beat quickly. He thought about their confrontation earlier – the one that had been Jude's first indication in the glorious world of the program that there were things that scared him. You could corrupt people's mind easily, but when they were already broken, a problem obviously arose. It was almost like trying to put a wildfire out with gasoline. Out of everyone in the program, nobody was more of a threat than Darren – a person's whose actions were not only spontaneous but deadly as a result of it. In Jude's mind, Darren was a person who wouldn't have the capacity to know the difference between being alive or dead.

"_There's two sides to this though",_ Jude thought quickly. _"This could work out well, or it could end with you dead."_

He felt his mind churning to work – in the very back, he heard the gentle voice of his father talking. A plan was calculated quickly and efficiently. Jude wasn't sure how long he stood there debating his plan – for all he knew, it could have been half an hour of listening to Darren howling and sobbing beside the tree trunk. Finally, deciding that deliberation wasn't a factor in his equation, he took a confident step forward.

"Hey", Jude said and took a step forward. "Need any help?"

It happened almost instantly. Darren's head turned abruptly and he raised his pistol and angled it at Jude's forehead. Jude's heart skipped a beat as he locked eyes with the boy sitting slumped beside the tree. His face was greasy and a mess of blood and perspiration, stubble and bruises coating his chin like volcanic rock.

"Put your gun down", Jude said suddenly. He'd never been more scared in his life, but somehow, his voice remained unchanged. "I just want to help."

The two of them stared at eachother for a very long time. Darren's finger trembled on the pistol as he stared curiously at Jude, the way a midnight raccoon would stare up from under a porch at its owner. His eyes were childlike and mesmerizing, and just for a moment, Jude almost felt bad for him. It was a wonder that he'd made it this far in the game just by doing what he was doing.

"It hurts", Darren wailed finally. "It hurts so bad."

It took Jude a moment to realize what he meant. It also explained why he was crying so much. His legs had been scalded by fiery pieces of grenade shrapnel that had seemingly butchered his calves and ankles. They seemed to be nothing more than flesh and burn wounds, but with the way Darren had been screaming earlier, the world might as well have been ending.

"I can help you", Jude said. "I'll make it all better. All you have to do is promise to lower the gun."

Darren complied simply enough. He lowered the gun to the ground and continued to wince from the pain in his leg.

"Alright", Jude said simply. There was no reason to be scared anymore, but his heart was pounding faster than it ever had in his life. "Let me get that for you now."

He walked over and sat down beside Darren. Almost immediately, he was met with the acrid stench of body odor and grime that had gathered around the boy in the last two days. Jude imagined he didn't smell much different. He ripped at the loose fabric hanging raggedly from Darren's jeans and pulled hard, ripping it off and exposing the charred skin littered and carved with shrapnel underneath like the surface of a moon. Darren glanced at him pitifully, and for a strange moment, Jude had the uncanny feeling he was going to turn on him – things were going to good to be true, and the situation almost called for it. Still, Darren kept that same vacant expression and simply stared with his blank eyes.

"Please", Darren whined. "Take me home."

"This is going to hurt", Jude said. "But I'm going to need you to bare with me."

The screaming that went on during the removal of Darren's shrapnel overshadowed his whining before. He stirred and shook against the tree as Jude carefully went about taking out the shrapnel, the leg writhing and protesting all the way. He managed to pull out the big chunks of it, but in the end, the leg was still speckled like bloody glitter. Coupled with the wound in his shoulder, Darren was no liable to join the program's line for immediate medical attention.

"There", Jude said finally. "That's that. That wasn't so bad, was it?"

"No", Darren said softly. It sounded like he was going to say something else, but he didn't. He just kept staring with his blank eyes. Jude tried his best to not look unnerved by it.

"I saw you earlier, you know", Jude said with his eyes twinkling. "You could have hurt me."

He sized up Darren as he spoke. He had a depraved look to him with a sunken-in face and hollow eyes, his large body almost out of proportion to the rest of his features. Beneath all of that though, there was a sense of gullibility to him – a single-minded desire that could be shaped and twisted like a ball of clay. All he wanted was to go home – all he wanted was to end the crying for good and go home.

"_He's a pawn",_ Jude thought wildly. _"We're all pawns, but he's a bigger one."_

Jude did his best not to shudder. He couldn't help but feel his father coaxing him in his head, egging him on to make the right choice to use Darren Warner as a puppet. It would be unpredictable, but at the same time, even the most frantic quips of spontaneity could be seen. Life was an orgy of pawns all after some kind of goal. Darren's just happened to be simpler than everyone else's. Everybody had a goal. Mae had a goal. Chris had a goal. Demi had a goal. Even Jude had a goal when it came down to it.

"But don't worry", Jude said with a sly smirk. "Just stick with me and you'll be fine. Everything's going to change now."

And although he had no idea at the time, Jude would turn out to be more right than he'd ever dreamed.

* * *

**Eliminated**

**(Boy #9) Juntz, Peter**

* * *

**20 Students Remaining**


	41. Surprise

I feel like I'm emerging on a battle field after a war – and to anyone who used to regularly follow this story, I hope this sudden update alert didn't give you a heart attack.

I'm basically writing this now because I remembered the password for my old email linked to this site, which means I can now access this account again. I intended to check things up on a whim, but upon further reflection, I actually have quite a bit to say; it's going to include why I abandoned this story, where I am now, and most particularly, how it would have ended – and yes, I _do _still remember. The fact that I still do after four of five years is pretty unnerving. Then again, for a very long time, this story really was a massive part of my life. I was really passionate about it and the fact that I didn't get to finish it is a source of disappointment and guilt – mainly for the fact that I personally hate it when authors cut stories short, so in a way, I'm kind of my own worst enemy. Plus there were people who really did seem to like this and I feel pretty bad for not giving them an ending after reaching the halfway mark.

So in short, this is what happened: I had a bad experience with someone in an online community that pretty much resulted in me having to barricade myself from the internet for my own safety. Combine that with some things going on in my personal life and you get the end of this story and me moving on. If it's any interest to anyone, I'm now an aspiring playwright and director studying theatre. I now write stories devoid of teenagers killing each other - although when I get writer's block with certain characters, I do sometimes find myself I could fit them with explosive collars and grotesquely dispatch them.

So in short, things happened, my life screwy, and I gradually stopped participating in online communities because I had other things to worry about. I'm writing this now for two reasons: I want to personally come to terms with a story I loved and didn't finish, and obviously, I want to provide anyone who might read this with the answer to how this story would have ended.

Anyway - now that the melodramatic, reminiscent, nostalgic crap is said and done with - I'll tell you how this story would have ended. I obviously don't remember some of the specific details, so forgive me if some aspects of this are kind of scarce in elaboration. Given the essence of what this story is, the best way to do this would be providing the rest of the death order:

* * *

**Nathan Carpenter: Killed by Prudence Mercedes**

**Miguel Chavez: Killed by Darren Warner**

**Prudence Mercedes: Killed by Adrienne Spring**

**Sadie Mercedes: Committed suicide**

**Travis Igolovosky: Killed by Tristan Igolovosky**

**Tristan Igolovosky: Succumbed to wounds caused by Travis Igolovosky**

**Logan Spruce: Committed suicide; killed in an explosion**

**Lea Passington: Killed in an explosion**

**J.C Brooke: Killed by Zane Barrens; euthanized**

**Erin Thompson: Killed by Luke Graystone**

**Amber Prescott: Killed by Adrienne Spring**

**Adrienne Spring: Collar detonated in a Danger Zone**

**Luke Graystone: Killed by Adam Spencers**

**Mitch Kelley: Killed by Adam Spencers**

**Adam Spencers: Killed by Mitch Kelley; collar detonated**

**Darren Warner: Killed by Zane Barrens**

**Terry Klingerman: Succumbed to smoke inhalation**

**Jude Mercedes: Killed by Mare Ewing**

**Mare Ewing: Killed by Zane Barrens**

**Winner: Zane Barrens**

* * *

So yeah, I suppose there's a bit of explaining to do. I'll try my best based on what I can remember.

As evidenced at the end of the last chapter posted, Jude would have teamed up with Darren and used him like a puppet.

Nathan Carpenter would have attempted to rally a call for peace in a nod to Yukiko and Yumiko, although his intentions would have been more sacrificial in this regard, hoping for his death to unite the class. He would have been spotted by Lea (camping on the roof of the diner) who would have taken shots at him until he was banging on the front door to get inside, hiding beneath the diner's front awing from Lea's shots. Prudence, not exactly the trusting type, would have opened the door and killed him on first instinct with a gun blast to the head. This would have been the incident that really divided Prudence and Sadie, the latter of whom would realize that her sister's desire to "protect" her had just led to the death of an innocent person.

Miguel Chavez would have ambled around in a broken mess, deprived of his role as a leader, deprived of his friends, before stumbling into Jude who would tell him weapons were in the lighthouse. Darren would have been waiting inside for him. After a pretty extensive fight that would have involved Miguel's hands being crushed, he would have been dragged to the top of the lighthouse and thrown off over the rocks. Before he died, as he was wandering around, he'd have found a sense of hysterical peace in his loneliness in that he no longer had to pretend to be anyone he wasn't. All of his friends would have now been dead and indifferent. Jude would abandon Darren after he started to get emotionally attached to looking out for him.

Meanwhile, Logan would returned to the manor to break the news to the other. There would have been some initial batter and threats from some members to leave, particularly Mare. Logan would have stepped up as leader and held the group together, vowing to escape, deciding to step into Peter's "kamikaze suicide" position to save the others. Erin would have stumbled into the escape crew and ended up joining them. I originally wasn't going to expand on Erin's role, but given how much I started to like her and wanted to give Amber's group more impact on the island, I decided to give her some more development. Around this time, Mitch and Terry would have gotten closer. Mare and Zane would have formed a common _"honor among thieves_" kinship with one another.

The girls at the diner _(Prudence, Sadie, and J.C)_ would have discovered a mine shaft entrance in the basement and escaped through it. Lea would have discovered this as well shortly afterwards and high-tailed it after them. The mine-shaft would have emptied out in the forest, inconveniently very close to Adrienne's beach. Cornering Prudence and Sadie _(with J.C abandoning them in the heat of the moment)_ Lea would have been severely beaten by Prudence; this point, it would have been to the point of near death. Just as Lea ambled off, there'd be a very tense, interesting moment in which the Mercedes triplets would finally meet up with Jude appearing in the thicket of trees. There'd be no words exchanged and simply a short silence, reuniting as a family but aware through the announcements that one of them has been responsible for a good amount of the island's deaths. The moment would have been erupted by Adrienne, rushing through the trees from the beach, having heard the commotion and wanting to shoo the others off from a paralyzed, dying Amber.

There'd have been a tense fight between Prudence and Adrienne. Jude would have been torn between his sociopathic tendencies and his general concern for his siblings; this would eventually become too much for them to the point where he would abandon them and run off, his sanity waning in the process. Adrienne would ultimately overpower Prudence and take her down by gouging her eyes out with her nails and shooting her point-blank in the throat. With Sadie horrified and alone, she'd have reached a very defining character moment in doing something she'd refused throughout the whole story: fighting back. Although the fight between Adrienne would be quick and brief before being shot in the kneecap, Sadie would refuse to let Adrienne take her life. Taking the gun after a scuffle, Sadie would shoot herself over Prudence's body, falling over it to purposely shield her sister from the rain. Adrienne would have trudged back to the beach, bloodied, exhausted, her confidence waning. Exit Prudence and Sadie.

Amber, meanwhile, would have gotten gradually delirious and started having hallucinations that are kind of hard to describe here. She'd reflect on how even with her social authority in school, she was too weak-willed to stop the injustice she saw going on around her. She preferred the artificial popularity Adrienne gave her as opposed to real friends because she was underlyingly a weak person searching for love and identity. Coming to terms with this, she'd begin to hallucinate that she was an extension of Adrienne herself, having always been controlled by her. She'd have wondered how many people really "knew" her as a real person.

Here's the part where the _"escape"_ would have happened. The kids would have split up into two groups. One (Mitch, Terry, Mare, Erin, and Zane) would have waited at the shore with an inflatable dingy, preparing to set sail once the collars were disabled. The others (Logan, Travis, Tristan, or in other words the "cannon fodder club") would waited at the school to blow it up. The technicians in the school would be in a state of disarray, having no operating system to detonate collars without contestants entering a Danger Zone. Logan carries two buckets of chlorine with her to create an effective explosion.

Unfortunately, Jude would have crashed the party. Tristan, smart enough to not tolerate anyone's shit at this point, would have ordered Travis to tie him up. As Logan would walked out onto the mound of dirt with the rope tied around her collar, leading into the pit of chlorine and the initial source of her death, Travis would have prepared to light the match. However, as Logan neared the school, Jude would have manipulated Travis into turning against Tristan, considering the lack of substance in their relationship and how he was never there to defend him from being bullied. He would essentially force him to question, "why would you want to escape this island and live your life with a bunch of people you don't even like?" Travis finally would have cracked under pressure and attacked Tristan without lighting the fuse, stranding Logan on the dirt mound. Travis ultimately would have forced Tristan's head into the pit of chlorine, stabbing him in the throat as he sustains chemical burns. Standing up deliriously, Travis would have had just enough time to reflect before a dying Tristan shoots him in the back of the throat. Jude glorifies in his work and cuts the rope leading to the chlorine pit, ending any hope of escape. Logan desperately douses herself in one of her bucket of chlorine, and ignoring the excruciating pain, takes a lighter given to her by Mare and lights herself on fire. She leaps out helplessly at Jude and out into the Danger Zone beneath her, detonating her collar, killing her instantly. So that's Travis, Tristan, and Logan, along with the hopes of more than one member of the class surviving.

Walking away from quite possibly his greatest achievement yet, Jude would have been attacked on the scene by a bloodied, exhausted, and near-death Lea. In his first real physical altercation since the game began, Jude would come to realize that he doesn't have the capacity to physically kill anyone; along with that, he's beginning to feel empathy over the people he kills after the deaths of Prudence and Sadie. With Lea essentially catatonic unable to move, Jude struggles to coerce her into killing herself like he did with others, instructing her to crawl into the pit of chlorine. Lea refuses. Jude snaps and pushes her body in it himself. He is unnerved at what he's done and isn't sure if he'll physically be able to kill anyone else.

The group with the boat realizes what's happened and naturally freak out. Mare threatens to leave the group and suggests they abandon each other and play. She takes this back afterwards, having come to care about the others and needing them for her own sake as well. The group struggles to come to terms with the fact that only one of them is going to survive. Luke suggests they decide on a winner amongst themselves and then have everyone else make a pact to commit suicide. The others refute this with Mitch citing that Luke wouldn't comply with this if he wasn't the one chosen. They aimlessly head back to the manor, although they are beginning to turn against each other. Things Mitch can't abandon the thoughts of escape and struggles to stay optimistic, Terry questions her faith in humanity. All of them, however – Mitch, Terry, Luke, Zane, and Erin - underlyingly consider playing the game.

The group camps out in the manor pondering what the hell to do next. While out collecting firewood with Zane and Mitch, Luke separates and has an encounter with Darren that terrifies him. As he runs away, he sees J.C wandering through the forest, crying pitifully. Having developed a thirst for survival, he aims, fires, and shoots her in the kneecaps. J.C is unaware of who shot her and screams for help. Luke calls over Zane and Mitch, coercing them into believing someone just shot her from the trees. Zane and J.C share an intimate moment of forgiveness before he tearfully euthanizes her with a sniper rifle shot to the head. Zane is too wrapped up in his own head to consider her death. Mitch has his suspicions that Luke did it. Luke, considering who's still alive in the game, says that Adam did it. Mitch angrily refutes this.

Back at the beach, it's finally revealed what Adrienne's been doing. The government bidders on the cruise ship choose the danger zones. Adrienne's been yelling out coordinates to her fans, sealing the beach off from any hope of escape. She has kept one zone safe to allow herself to walk away, and in an hour's time, the beach will become a Danger Zone and Amber's collar will detonate. In a nod to Mitsuko in a conversation with Amber, Adrienne simply explains she was "tired of being loser" and glorified in controlling Amber at school, hiding in the background, keeping herself away from the attention and blame. The island has essentially allowed her to do what she always wanted. When Adrienne ultimately falls asleep, Amber struggles to crawl away. A long-awaited fight then ensues between Amber and Adrienne as the government bidders on the cruise ship cheer them on. Adrienne kills Amber by cracking the soft part of the back of her skull in with the blunt end of Shyla's butter knife. However, it isn't before Amber manages to keep her at the beach long enough for it to become a Danger Zone. Delirious and dying, Adrienne rushes out into the water, screaming at the men on the ships as her collar detonates. The bodies of four girls are left on the beach.

Back at the manor, Luke has an intimate conversation with Erin after the announcement of her friends' deaths. Erin explains that though she's lost everyone she's loved, she refuses to die and let their lives be in vain. Luke becomes paranoid, and seeing her as competition, cracks her skull in with a fireplace poker in the den. Seven students (Terry, Mare, Mitch, Zane, Adam, Darren, and Jude) remaining. As Luke tries to hide Erin's body under a tarp outside, Terry, Mare, Mitch, and Zane catch him. Mare beats him into submission, and though they facilitate killing him, they decide to throw him off into the woods with his hands tied behind his back, leaving him for dead.

It also gradually becomes clear why this class was placed in the program. Earlier in the summer, Zane conducted a riot against the program and the government in general. Several people were seriously injured. Luke was emotionally drained/shell-shocked by this, and at the notion of his therapist, signed up for the program – bringing his class into it with him. Who's his therapist? Jude learned to be a con artist from his sociopathic father who pretty much crushed the empathy out of him. At one point, Jude fell in love with a girl after he was unable to manipulate/control her the way he could with others. His father found out, and giving therapy to her abusive father at the time, pressed his buttons until he became enraged enough to put her into a coma. He was detained for this but fled and changed his identity, continuing his practice elsewhere – with Luke as one of his clients, giving him the supple opportunity to do away with his son in the process.

Jude, meanwhile, has taken refuge in the tram station. Because of its strong structure, it hasn't burned down entirely and the foundation still sits brimming with smoke fumes. He uncovers a gas mask in the closet and sits waiting for the final battle. Darren wanders by aimlessly. Jude directs him toward the manor.

Luke is lost and aimless. He stumbles into the "bughouse" where seldom seen Adam has gone axe-crazy. Seeing him as manipulating his friends (Mitch) away and conspiring against him, Adam murders Luke by forcing his head through a crumbling wall and jabbing a meat carving knife through the back of his neck.

Mitch tries to encourage the others to search for Adam but his pleas fall on deaf ears. He stakes out on his own and finds his crazed friend in the dilapidated, mosquito-infested building with Luke's body. A lengthy battle ensues that culminates in Adam stabbing Mitch to death – but not before Mitch triggers his collar. Adam dashes up the basement staircase and dies as his collar explodes against the screen door.

The announcement is heard and Zane, Mare, and Terry realize that Mitch and Luke are dead. Just then, Darren arrives (directed by Jude to the manor) and a lengthy fight ensues. Zane bashes Darren's face in with the blunt end of his sniper rifle until he dies. In the process of the fight however, he is mortally wounded. Mare and Terry have no choice but to leave him to die on the couch as they go to confront Jude.

So that makes the final four: Zane Barrens (Boy #1), Mare Ewing (Girl #3), Terry Klingerman (Girl #6), and Jude Mercedes (Boy #11).

Terry and Mare arrive at the smoke-filled, crumbling tram station. While it's impossible for them to breathe or see, Jude has a gas mask in the mold of the climax to Silence of the Lambs. He tries to turn them against each other in the dark, although crazed and exhausted, his attempts are now much less successful than before. Jude tricks Terry into a closet and lacks it with a broom handle, leaving her to die of smoke inhalation.

Meanwhile at the manor, Zane musters up the strength to rise up and trudges off to the manor to help his friends.

Terry begins to have strange, cosmic hallucinations in the closet as the smoke inhalations get to her. She feels the sense of becoming different people within the game and channeling into them.

Mare and Jude duke it out to the death. Just as Mare is about to lose her life, Zane enters the fray and fights Jude with the tools Miguel and David were using to make their "tram bomb." A lengthy fight leads to Zane impaling Jude on one of the gears on the tram's loading dock. Just as Jude grabs Zane's leg in an attempt to pull him in, Mare starts up the tram and grinds and crushes Jude to a bloody pulp.

Mare and Zane recuperate. Their minds are jarred back to Terry only to open the closet and discover her dead from smoke inhalation. Of what started out as forty-two students, Mare and Zane are now the only ones left.

Roughly an hour later, nearing midnight when their collars will detonate, Zane and Mare sit on the roof of the manor and debate what to do. Both say they wouldn't mind letting the other win, but at the same time, they can't decide whether or not they're being deceitful or actually care about each other's well-being. In a nod to what she did earlier with Winston, Mare makes an offer: they each take a gun, they go to opposite sides of the island, they meet up, and they have at it. Zane grudgingly agrees and the two set off. The end of the story follows Mare's point of view as she walks to what could be her impending death, crossing over her classmates' bodies, nearing the middle of the island where they agreed to meet him. Processing everything that's happened, Mare decides to fake-fire and let Zane win. When they meet up however, she is horrified in that he decides to do the exact same thing. The two stare at one another with their guns pointed, astounded, unsure of what to do next. Their collars begin to count down.

And with survival instinct kicking in, Zane fires off the final shot of the game and kills Mare.

An epilogue follows Zane emerging from the hospital – not for his injuries from the game, but for being choked by Chris Barrister's father at his first press conference. He's forced to attend a government celebration on his behalf. With his entire family watching, waiting for him to say something to commentate on what's happened, Zane abandons the podium and leaves town. Before he does, he sits vacantly at the courtyard where the students waited at for the buses to arrive at the beginning. He considers the tragedy in how little all of them really knew each other before the program. Hidden behind their social masks, desiring to be accepted like everyone else, it was only through a horrible, morbid event that their true colors were able to come out.

Leaving Spanish Rivers for good, Zane hitchhikes down the highway out of Oklahoma, considering becoming a terrorist to rally against the program, wondering if what he has to say could be put into words anyway.

And that's that.

Am I proud of what I created here? Given how it's essentially a plethora of spelling errors and teenage angst, I wouldn't say entirely. Nonetheless though, I had a real connection to this story and felt the personal need to shut the casket now that I had the ability to. I don't know if anyone's going to read this or if it will fade into obscurity, but I hope this provides you with closure. It does for me.

_-TheWaxFactory_


End file.
